Walter Finch
A MOTHER-OF-TWO helped put an end to the reign of terror of a pair of burglars who gassed their victims while they slept.
In doing so, she cut short a crime spree that had terrorised the occupants of luxury villas across Ibiza throughout the summer – and could have been going on for years.
The pair of thieves, from Albania, had even targeted the villa where British radio DJ Nick Grimshaw had been staying with his 81-year-old mother Eileen.
The former BBC Radio 1 breakfast presenter had rented the home last month to celebrate his 40th birthday with his family and fiancé, Mesh Henry.
READ MORE: Watch: Thugs who ‘gassed and robbed British radio star Nick Grimshaw’ in Ibiza are arrested
Grimshaw was just one of the 22 properties the thieves have knocked off this year. But they robbed the last villa in the early hours of August 28 .
“There were two men in balaclavas and surgical gloves, creeping around the house in silent slippers for two and a half hours,” Sandra (who asked us not to use her real name), 47, told the Olive Press.
“I was very groggy and barely aware of what was going on, but my 13-year-old daughter saw the whole thing.”
She explained that, on that particular night, she and her two daughters had gone to bed early.
“It’s a big, big house, so I said to them ‘why don’t we all sleep together?’ We were fast asleep before 11pm.”
But then a hazy nightmare took over, as she became ‘vaguely’ aware of there being strange men in the house, but she could not wake up to do anything about it.
Sandra is sure they were ‘gassed’ using gas canisters sprayed into their faces while they slept, but the gas ‘didn’t work properly’.
“It’s like you’re hypnotised,” she explained. “I finally got up at 5.20am, but I felt so groggy and weird. I thought ‘how much did I drink last night?’”
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Other victims have reported similar symptoms, leading police to suspect that the perpetrators were using some sort of gas to induce drowsiness.
It was only after she had gone back to bed that Sandra realised something wasn’t right. There was someone in the room with her and her daughters, aged 12 and 13.
“Then I got up again, went to the door, and saw something I’ll never forget: the door closing and this guy putting his finger to his lips going shh!
“I suddenly understood our home was being invaded, and I went into the foetal position and just absolutely shivered.”
It was Sandra’s eldest daughter – who had been lying awake watching the men creep around the house while her mother and sister were out cold – who shook her to her senses.
“Mummy, we have to escape!” she said.
Her maternal instincts kicking in, the single-mother led the three of them through a balcony window and out into the surrounding fields where they alerted the housekeeper.
According to Sandra, the burglars were picked up by the Guardia Civil at 6.30am, less than an hour after they had left her villa after viewing high-quality CCTV from the property.
Now the mother-of-two is warning other visitors to Ibiza to avoid staying in isolated villas because burglary gangs are ‘rife’ across the island.
“Gangs that go around the island targeting these luxury villas out in the countryside have become normalised,” she said.
“We’re just simple, ordinary people and they robbed us. An actor friend of mine who has a villa on the island told me they’d been burgled while at home three times this year.”
The final burglary of their crime spree must have proven disappointing for the criminals as they only managed to steal ‘€70 and a pair of earrings’ from Sandra’s villa.
“As a mother, I know it could have been so much worse,” she reflected.
“It could have been really bad. The police told me ‘your kitchen is full of barbecue equipment and knives, or they could have put pillows over your faces.’
“If they had wanted to kill or rape us, they could have. But they didn’t.”
A subsequent police investigation was able to track down the thieves’ home through the vehicles they had used during the robberies.
During a search police discovered ‘multiple stolen items such as high-end watches, sunglasses, jewellery, handbags from well-known brands, mobile phones and cash’ worth an estimated €548,500 .
Two men plus a woman from Romania have been remanded in prison, facing charges of breaking and entering, robbery with violence, and theft.
