The Guardia Civil has arrested 8 people belonging to a criminal organisation specialized in
theft of ATMs. The detainees are attributed to the theft of 18 ATMs, among other crimes,
committed mainly in the provinces of Alicante and Murcia, since mid-2020.
The detainees are alleged to have carried out 18 ATM robberies, 20 crane truck robberies,
2 high-end car thefts, used by the gang itself, 3 licence plate thefts, 8 home robberies, forgery of documents and belonging to a criminal group.
The amounts stolen total more than 500,000 euro, and the damage caused, to more than
700,000 euro. A large number of effects and tools have been seized that were used to carry out the crimes, the value of which amounts to 35,000 euro.
The investigations began in mid-2020, as a result of several robberies committed at ATMs
in the southern coastal area of the province of Alicante, Torrevieja, Orihuela Costa and
the northern area of Murcia.
The ATMs, installed on public roads, were ripped out of their installations by boom crane
trucks, also stolen.
All the robberies were perpetrated with the same modus operandi.
The organisation carried out a detailed study of the area before choosing the ATM that
they were going to rob, opting for those located in small urban centres or in isolated urbanisations and that had the necessary escape routes.
Once the ATM was chosen, they searched the vicinity for the existence of jib crane
trucks. The night before, or at dawn of the same day, they stole one of these trucks and
perpetrated the robbery of the ATM.
Later, they moved to isolated areas, where they opened it using radials, wedges, mallets,
levers and other objects, accessing the cash that was inside. Then, they left the truck
and the fractured ATM abandoned and fled with the proceeds.
It took a complex investigation by the Guardia to confirm this information.
For this reason, the agents began an investigation, managing to locate and arrest the
eight members of a highly specialised gang.
They are six men and two women, aged between 30 and 50 years. The arrests took
place in the towns of Alcalá de Henares and Rivas Vaciamadrid (Madrid) and Torrevieja
(Alicante).
The operation has been carried out by the Team of Crimes against Patrimony of the
Organic Unit of the Judicial Police and the Team against Organised Crime of the Guardia
Civil of Alicante and directed by the courts in Torrevieja.
