The National Police and the Civil Guard, in a joint operation, have dismantled a gang in the provinces of Madrid and Toledo to which they attribute two attacks on ATMs with explosives in bank branches, some of them in the province of Valencia, of which that they stole more than 200,000 euros, both bodies report.
The operation, called Lightning, ended at the beginning of March with the arrest of six people accused of 54 crimes, including three robberies with force through the use of explosives -one could not be carried out-, 10 robberies with force against companies , 30 vehicle thefts, a crime of belonging to a criminal group and another against public health.
The assailants had created a metallic artifact that they filled with pressed gunpowder obtained from the interior of firecrackers and to which they placed a resistor. Later they connected it to an electric battery at the time of the attack to blow up the ATMs, which were completely destroyed, as well as the structure of the branches, which were at risk of collapse.
The gang operated in the provinces of Madrid, Toledo and Valencia, where they assaulted company headquarters and industrial warehouses with large displacement vehicles that they had previously stolen.
The investigation began in July 2022, when the gang committed its first attack on a bank branch, from which they stole more than 120,000 euros. Three months later they carried out a new assault with the same method and in that case they seized 90,000 euros.
The gang undertook a third attack but that ATM had been reinforced with an anti-explosive system, so they had to withdraw empty.
In addition, the investigations confirmed the participation of the suspects in other robberies of companies, among which those committed in the towns of Gandía (Valencia) and Alcobendas (Madrid) stand out, in which they stole 700 mobile phones and 10,000 euros.
Finally the band was dismantled at the beginning of last March, when nine searches were made in the provinces of Madrid and Toledo, one of them in a commercial ship. In another of the records, the agents located a marijuana plantation.
