Three arrested for stealing 3,000 kilos of copper

The Guardia Civil has arrested three people and is looking into a fourth person’s suspected role in a string of copper thefts that took place in several places in the provinces of Alicante and Albacete.

The inquiry has led to the arrest of a criminal cell that worked together on a regular basis to make money by selling stolen copper.

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The Rural Crime Unit (ROCA) of the Ibi Company started looking into the theft of about 700 metres of copper cable in the village of Pinoso on September 24th. During the first investigations, police were able to identify two of the people they thought were responsible. Both of them have long criminal records for similar crimes.

Investigations

Later investigations showed that they had been stealing cables in a planned way in different cities since August. They stole about 3,000 kilogrammes of copper and caused economic damage of more than 50,000 euros to several municipalities.

Modus operandi

The way they did things was always the same: they stole things in the early hours of the morning, took them to a place where they could take off the plastic coating, and then sold them at a recycling centre.

In the early hours of October 31st, officers from the Onil Local Police and the Guardia Civil caught one of the suspects putting copper into the trunk of a car. When they found him, the person tried to run away, but the officers couldn’t catch him at that moment.

On November 7th, operatives from the ROCA Team in Ibi detained two of the suspects as they were preparing to sell 120 kilogrammes of copper that had been taken a few hours earlier in Salinas. The operation was kept secret. During the operation, papers belonging to two people were also found. These papers had been used to keep track of sales of several hundred kilogrammes of copper in the past.

A third suspect was arrested in the days that followed. The manager of the recycling centre where the sales took place has also been looked into for the alleged recurring crime of receiving stolen goods. He earned about €15,000 in just three months by purchasing numerous tonnes of stolen copper.

Crimes that have been solved

The ROCA units in Ibi, Almansa, and Hellín, as well as the Local Police in Onil and Elda, worked together well to solve crimes in the Alicante towns of Pinoso, Onil, Salinas, and San Vicente del Raspeig, as well as in the Albacete towns of Albatana, Caudete, Fuente Álamo, and Ontur.

Arrests

The people who are being held are a 36-year-old male, a 41-year-old man, and a 38-year-old woman. The individual who is being looked into is a 26-year-old man.

Each of them is charged with 11 counts of theft, receiving stolen items, document forgery, and one count of a driving offence, depending on how involved they were. The courts of San Vicente and Novelda have heard their cases and let them out on bond.

The ROCA Team from the Ibi Company (Alicante) did the investigation with help from the ROCA Teams from Almansa and Hellín (Albacete) and the Local Police of Onil and Elda (Alicante).

Author: Derek Appleton