The Mossos have arrested two men, aged 54 and 42, in Barcelona who robbed young people during the night using the mataleón technique. While one of them approached the victim and strangled him from behind to make him lose consciousness, the other grabbed his personal belongings.
The thieves operated in narrow streets in the Sants neighborhood, which were not very busy at night and lacked nearby commercial establishments that could have video surveillance cameras. The first individual was arrested on October 19, while the police arrested the second on the 22nd of that same month. The Mossos attribute at least three violent robberies to them.
Between the months of June and October 2023, investigators learned of a series of violent robberies in the Sants neighborhood of the Catalan capital that shared the same characteristics. They were committed by two people, always in the same time slot, in similar spaces and with the same modus operandi. The Sants Investigation Unit began an investigation that made it possible to find different points of connection between all the facts investigated.
The authors used the mataleón technique. Thus, one of the detainees stood behind the victim and approached her by surprise from behind, grabbing her tightly by her neck and causing her to strangle her with her forearm. As a consequence, the victim lost consciousness and the thieves took advantage of her to steal all the valuable objects that she had on her.
The victims were young boys and girls. The thieves always operated in narrow streets, with little traffic at night and in the absence of businesses that might have surveillance cameras. They even committed one of the acts inside a farm gate.
The investigators identified both authors and confirmed that they knew each other, since they lived together at the same address. They also confirmed that when they agreed to commit a violent robbery, those arrested distributed their roles. One of them performed the strangulation technique, and the other assumed surveillance tasks, drawing the attention of the victims and collecting the valuable objects they were carrying.
Once identified, the investigators requested authorization from the court to enter and search the home of those investigated. On October 19, they made it effective, and as a result, they found different clothes that the thieves wore to commit the robberies and some stolen objects.
The agents arrested one of the men on the 19th, while the other could not be arrested until the 22nd. Both were brought to justice before the investigating court acting as guard in Barcelona. One did it on October 21 and the other on the 24th of that same month.
