A San Juan optician was robbed by two hooded men

The network of Ópticas Óptima outlets, a group of opticians who have suffered 18 robberies in less than three years, nearly all in the province of Alicante with the exception of two in the Region of Murcia, are the target of a recent heist being investigated by the Alicante National Police. This time, two hooded individuals broke into a store in Playa de San Juan and took hundreds of glasses in two minutes. The proprietors of Ópticas Óptima have not yet determined the exact value of the items.

Juan José Fernández, manager of Ópticas Óptima, told this newspaper that the chain he oversees, which has 26 locations in the Region of Murcia and the province of Alicante, has been devastated by the recent wave of robberies.

Safety precautions

Even with the installation of bars and other security measures, robbers have managed to get into recently opened opticians’ shops and have now cloned the remote control to open the shutters.

The optician’s store on Avenida Ansaldo was robbed at approximately 5:20 a.m. They broke the sliding glass door with a sledgehammer after opening the shutters. Two minutes after entering the optician’s store, the two robbers started packing glasses from the shelves into boxes and ran away.

The establishment’s alarm was set off right away, but the robbers took off in a car before the police could come, and the neighbours who heard the alert were roused and saw the assault.

The final two robberies that Ópticas Óptima experienced took place in Murcia and Gran Alacant, Santa Pola, on the same night as the Valencia attack.

They had previously robbed an optician’s store in this chain, and one of the robbers had lost his cell phone. This prompted the Civil Guard to launch an investigation, which ended with the arrest of three individuals in Alicante and Madrid who were experts at smash-and-grab theft and were accused of eight robberies in businesses, including pharmacies, betting shops, perfumeries, and opticians in the provinces of Alicante, Murcia, and Castellón.