Isha Sesay
NINE firearms dumped by a criminal gang have been recovered by police from a reservoir in the Valencian Community.
Guardia Civil say that days before getting rid of the weapons in an irrigation reservoir in Monovar the gang had carried out a robbery at a nearby farm.
Here, the gang stole six hunting rifles, two air rifles, one semi-auto rifle, 4,000 kilos of almonds, five litres of oil, a large amount of diesel and various tools.
After analysing CCTV footage of vehicles circulating the area at the time of the robbery, investigators made a plan to raid three properties located in Pinoso town.
At dawn, simultaneous raids were made at the addresses with a search of the premises recovering some of the stolen items.
Five men were arrested for belonging to a criminal group, robbery with force and the illegal possession of a weapon.
However the investigation continued to recover the weapons since they were not found in any of the homes.
Police later found out that the gang had tried to sell them on the blackmarket without success.
With this information in hand, they carefully analysed the movements of the men after the robbery and concluded that the irrigation reservoir had a very high chance of being the dumping ground.
Diving specialists from the Alicante Command in Underwater Activities (GEAS) were then called in to search the body of water, where they located all of the missing weapons.
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