Walter Finch
A NARCO stick up gang that pulled off a daring heist on the Marbella motorway to rob a van suspected of transporting dirty money has been arrested.
The criminal gang disguised themselves as police officers to pull off the brazen robbery on the busy A7 last February.
Armed with pistols and flashlights, they set up a fake police control and stopped a van carrying a large sum of cash.
In their guise as police officers, they shone their lights into the driver’s eyes and then smashed him in the face with the butt of a gun.
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They then hauled him out of the van, hijacked it and drove away with €300,000 stashed inside a false bottom – all before stunned onlookers.
The stolen vehicle was later found abandoned in the town of Ojen on the same day.
Five members of the gang, which had been targeting drug traffickers in a series of high-stakes robberies, have been arrested, with two being remanded in jail in an operation code-named ‘Bicol’.
The gang were part of a well-organised criminal network operating in the Marbella, Estepona, and Casares areas.
They were involved in a series of high-profile robberies, targeting rival criminal organisations involved in the drug trade.
Police raided five properties and two garages, seizing an array of weapons, including a tampered pistol, a shotgun, over 2,600 rounds of ammunition, and various amounts of cocaine, hashish, and marijuana. Police also found €12,630 in cash, communication equipment, police uniforms, and a drone.
It comes after the Guardia Civil warned that a dozen organised gangs are robbing foreign tourists ‘daily’ at motorway service areas in the Valencia and Murcia regions.
Thefts and violent robberies have risen during the summer at rest areas on the A-7 and AP-7 motorways.
There have been 75 arrests in the last two years and most are repeat offenders using fake identities.
The Guardia Civil says the largest criminal group consists of several related families originating from a small Romanian town called Chitila.
The gang is based in Malaga and cities in the Valencian Community- specialising in service area robberies at night.
Since 2021, 43 alleged members of the Chitila gang have been detained, while three other groups of Romanian thieves with criminal records in Spain have also been operating.
Three other motorway robbery gangs are made up of Algerians and a further three consisting of Kosovar Albanians who also target victims at shopping centres.
