Mossos d'Esquadra agents from the Horta-Guinardó Investigation Unit arrested a 35-year-old man on March 27 as the alleged perpetrator of a robbery with violence and intimidation, a crime of injuries and another of damages.
Early in the morning on March 23, two men got into a taxi on Capsec Street in Barcelona. The supposed clients changed the taxi driver's final destination until they stopped him near Manuel Baldrich Square.
Then, one of them put a knife to his neck and the other hit him while they demanded the money. The victim, who suffered minor injuries, gave them two mobile phones, the money he had on him, bank cards and his documentation. They then made him get out and fled in the taxi.
However, the escape was short-lived as they got into an accident on Capsec Street. The taxi was badly damaged stuck between a tree and the wall of a church. The two occupants, according to witnesses, got out of the vehicle and ran away.
Investigators linked this robbery to another similar one committed in early March in the same district. Specifically, at noon on March 2, a man requested service from a taxi driver on Verdum Street. Shortly after, the man threatened the taxi driver with a box cutter and a screwdriver, demanding the money.
The taxi driver stopped the vehicle and managed to get out of the taxi without suffering injuries. However, the assailant moved towards the driver's seat and fled with the vehicle, running over a man who was riding a scooter. A few meters away he abandoned the taxi and ran away with the taxi driver's mobile phone, wallet and keys.
When the patrols arrived, once they had assisted the victim and the man who had been run over with minor injuries, they were alerted by witnesses that the assailant had entered a building on Hostalric Street.
Non-uniformed agents from the citizen security unit of the Horta-Guinardó police station waited at the scene until, at 2:15 p.m., a man emerged whose description fully matched that provided by the victim and witnesses. The police arrested him for robbery with violence and intimidation and recovered the stolen objects.
The agents who took charge of the last incident saw that the modus operandi of the perpetrators in both cases was very similar and that the taxi accident had occurred a few meters from Hostalric Street.
The victim of the last robbery recognized the person, who was already arrested on March 2, as one of the assailants and that is why, on Wednesday, March 27, the investigators arrested him.
It so happens that, apart from the amount of the repair of the vehicle, the events represent serious economic damage for the taxi driver as he cannot work during the days that the vehicle was in the workshop to repair the serious damage suffered.
The investigation remains open to identify and arrest the second person involved in the events.
