Hotel and Shopping Centre Thieves Arrested in Torrevieja

The National Police arrested three people, one of Costa Rican origin and the other two of Peruvian origin, managing to dismantle an itinerant criminal group specialised in the theft of valuable objects in hotels and shopping centres, in two interventions on parallel investigations carried out by the Elche Police Station and the Alicante Provincial Police Station.

The investigation began as a result of a complaint from a woman who, while she was having breakfast at the buffet in a hotel, had her bag stolen.

According to what she told the officers at the time, the victim was having breakfast with her husband in the hotel restaurant where they were staying and got up from the table to get food from the buffet. When she returned to the table, she noticed that the bag that she had left on her chair while she went get the food had gone.

The subsequent investigation and detailed analysis of the images from the establishment’s security cameras allowed the agents to discover that three people, two men and one woman, acted in a coordinated manner in the event, whom they were able to identify and who were at that time settled in the town of Torrevieja.

In parallel, the Economic and Fiscal Crime Group of the Alicante Provincial Police Station investigated a roving criminal group for weeks, which is also specialised in committing fraud through the criminal modality known as skimming (theft of credit card information to reproduce or clone them).

For several weeks, the criminals were operating in the eastern part of Spain, committing fraud with bank cards.

The detainees watched their victims at ATMs and commercial establishments, observing their PIN code, to later follow them and steal their cards.

One of his most recent occurred in a shopping centre in Alicante, where they followed one of the victims for hours until they managed to take his card.

With the card in their possession, the criminals withdrew cash at various ATMs and made purchases at different establishments. However, thanks to the rapid intervention of the National Police, the group was arrested and the clothing they were wearing at the time of the robberies was recovered.

Thanks to this operation, it was possible to recover a bag from a prestigious brand, as well as a high-end mobile phone, 525 euro in cash, 350 dollars and various pieces of jewellery, all of which was likely the product of the crimes they had committed. It is estimated that the loot obtained by the group through skimming amounts to around 2,500 euro.

After giving a statement at police stations, they were placed at the disposal of the Investigating Court in Torrevieja where they were arrested.

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