Gang arrested in Palma de Mallorca suspected of manipulating vehicles stolen from tourists to sell to third parties

Five men arrested in Palma de Mallorca are suspected of selling manipulated vehicles to third parties that they had initially stolen from tourists visiting the Balearic island.

As reported in a statement from the National Police, officers in Palma de Mallorca, have arrested five men on suspicion of being the alleged perpetrators of various crimes of robbery with force on the Balearic island of Mallorca. They are accused of stealing vehicles which they manipulated to sell to third parties.

Specifically, the detainees were between 23 and 47 years of age, and of Spanish, British and Brazilian nationality.

A police investigation was launched in January by the Beach District Investigation Group after it detected an increase in the theft of parts from high-end vehicles and even the theft of complete vehicles of certain brands.

Those arrested allegedly manipulated and falsified the documentation of the stolen vehicles. They were subsequently sold in the second-hand vehicle market. They also stole custom parts, which were later used to repair vehicles in clandestine workshops they had set up for the purpose.

The police investigators were able to clarify that some of the stolen vehicles were cars with foreign licence plates. At the time of their theft, they were being driven by foreign tourists visiting the island and had been stolen from car parking areas. Access to the vehicles was often gained by breaking the perimeter fences or sometimes they were even removed by the use of a crane.

In most cases, the modus operandi employed by the thieves was practically the same. The gang acquired scrapped vehicles and later stole a vehicle of the same make and model. They then stamped the vehicle’s frame to imitate the original car and in this way achieved a great economic benefit after selling them to third parties.

Among the detainees are the owner of a scrapyard and a car park worker, a role which greatly facilitated the illegal activity. The leader of the organisation was found to have more than 50 police records in his name, larazon.es.

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