The Civil Guard has arrested the seven alleged members of a specialized gang that the Ministry of the Interior describes as “the most active criminal organization in Europe” in perpetrating robberies with the pizza palette. The armed institute already had a history of this robbery system, unusual in Spain, since in 2019 they dismantled a group that used it. In police parlance this method of robbery is known as pizza palette either cricket bat, and requires expertise on the part of the criminals who use it. It consists of inserting an explosive device just over a centimeter thick through the slot through which ATMs dispense bills. To do so, they use long sticks or canes, like the paddle used to put pizzas in the oven, to deposit the bomb inside. After walking away, they blow it up and break the device that contains the money, causing serious damage to the branch. The thieves now only have to collect the bills and flee.
The operation has been carried out in two phases. Those now arrested are accused of committing seven robberies in Spain -always in financial entities located in small towns in the north-west of the peninsula- and 15 more in five other European countries, with which they obtained a booty of 1.5 million euros. In Spain they always used black powder, an industrially manufactured explosive used both in the production of hunting cartridges and pyrotechnic devices and in mining, although in some of their hits in other countries they even used Triacetone Triperoxide (TATP), an explosive of home-made known as mother of satan used by jihadist groups in their attacks.
The so-called Operation Berthelot (in reference to the 19th-century French chemist Marcellin Berthelot, who did research on explosives) began on December 14, 2020, after the now-dismantled gang blew up with one of these devices at dawn that day. the cashier of a bank branch in Toral de los Vados, a town in León with less than 2,000 inhabitants. The investigations of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) indicated from the beginning that behind that coup there was a well-organized group that, in addition to placing the explosives through this system, had used a previously stolen vehicle to move to the scene through a sophisticated system. which, after the robbery, had been abandoned after spraying its interior with the contents of a fire extinguisher to erase traces.
this quirky modus operandi it was later repeated six times in the following months. On May 1, 2021, they acted against a branch in Pastoriza (Lugo) and, on the following June 23, against another in Colunga (Asturias). Between August 18 and 26 last year, the group carried out three coups in Piloña (Asturias), Oza-Cesuras (A Coruña) and Castro Ribeiras de Lea (Lugo). None of these towns has more than 7,000 inhabitants. “This cell always chose ATMs in municipalities that, due to their size, did not have too much police surveillance or people transit, and that, in addition, will provide them with quick access to major communication routes to be able to flee,” say sources from the Guard. Civil.
The last robbery in Spain of the group occurred on October 16 in San Claudio, an Asturian municipality of 5,600 inhabitants. That day, the criminals, who were being followed by the Civil Guard shortly after entering Spain by car, something they did the day before. They blew up an ATM after inserting, as always, a device through the money slot that they had forced to make it bigger with a crowbar. After exploding the bomb, two of the thieves went to collect the money and, while they were still at it, (they managed to appropriate 48,000 of the 115,000 euros that the device had, in what would have been their biggest booty in Spain) , the Civil Guard appeared, who arrested both and a third member who was waiting for them in a stolen car to flee.
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That night the agents entered the house in Ribadeo (Lugo) that the group used as a logistics base and arrested two other people, a man and a woman. Among the first detainees was the alleged leader of the group, responsible for the elaboration of the artifacts, according to the Civil Guard. Finally, last week the last two members of the group were arrested, in a joint operation with the police of Belgium, France and Romania, under the coordination of Europol (the EU police agency). One of them was arrested in Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid) and nearly 10,000 euros in cash were seized, in addition to police clothing, drugs and electronic devices. The other, in Romania, where all the members of the band were from. Several of the detainees had records in other countries, say sources of the investigation.
The investigations indicate that the group, which has allegedly been operating since 2019, is also the alleged perpetrator of robberies by the same system in Luxembourg (2), Belgium (5), France (4), Switzerland (2) and Germany (2) . “The group was itinerant and had logistics bases similar to that of Ribadeo in at least three other European countries,” say sources of the investigation, who give as an example of their mobility that between arriving in Spain and leaving after the robbery , sometimes only four days passed. “The first was the arrival. The second, they looked for the ATM, for which they sometimes traveled more than 1,000 kilometers to locate the one they considered best suited to their way of acting. The third, they committed the robbery. And the fourth, they fled ”, detail the sources consulted, who add that the band, when they arrived in Spain, brought the artifacts ready.
In addition to the seven robberies at the branches, those now detained are accused in Spain of 18 other crimes, including the theft of the cars they used for the assaults, theft at other companies and the havoc they caused with the detonations both in the branches as in the buildings where these were. “Sometimes they affected the structure of the buildings,” stress research sources as an example of the power of the artifacts they placed.
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