The wheel operation –rueda in English– has made it possible to arrest the most voracious gang dedicated to moon landing robberies in Spain. But it has also served Mossos d’Esquadra Yet the Civil Guard to corroborate that there is “a moon landing culture” rooted in Spain and, more specifically, in the periphery of Madrid and Barcelona, according to the sub-inspector Jonathan Herreraboss of Central Area of Crimes against Property of the Catalan police. “We have several active batteries and they coordinate and exchange information between the two cities,” the sub-inspector stressed.
As happened in the eighties with gangs that specialized in repeatedly robbing banks and making this crime their way of life, a similar phenomenon is now taking place with nighttime robberies of businesses that are accessed by crashing cars, adds Herrera. Raul Rico He is the lieutenant who has led the Civil Guard group that joined the Joint Investigation Team (ECI) created with the Mossos for the ‘Wheel’ case when it detected that both bodies were persecuting the same suspects. At the press conference held this Wednesday at the Les Corts police station, Rico stressed that the dismantled gang was aggressive with the police, even going so far as to ram a patrol car in order to flee. The example happened in reality: the Spanish policemen were following a group of ‘aluniceros’ inside a civilian vehicle but they recognized them and rammed them with their car in order to get rid of them.
According to Rico, those who are dedicated to this criminal specialty are men over 20 and under 40. They are Spanish, although among those arrested in the latest operation there is a suspect from Morocco. They wear a high life train, “with cash, wearing expensive clothes and eating in high-end restaurants” and accumulate dozens of police records for these events. The last eight add up to a total of 235 crimes. The movie ‘Up to the sky’ (Daniel Calparsoro, 2020), starring Miguel García Herrán and Carolina Yuste, presents a softened version of a way of acting that in Madrid is associated with “the boy Sáez”, a reference to the aluniceros.
On the ‘Sáez boy’, the journalist Laura Alvarez I wrote this in ‘The reason’: “According to those who knew him, his main problem and what probably led to his death was ambition. At the age of 36, Francisco Javier Martín Sáez could calmly live without working; dedicate himself to enjoying all his wealth that he had been amassing throughout his intense criminal career. However, ‘El Niño’ continued on the crest of the wave, giving big ‘sticks’ with his gang of aluniceros and butroneros, bursting safe deposit boxes with thermal lances”. Sáez was allegedly murdered in 2017 by the hitman who hired a drug trafficker.
The version that perhaps the film does not reflect, as stated by Herrera, is that the way of acting of the group of thieves shows “absolute contempt for the lives of others.” “They drive at full speed, compromising the integrity of the rest of the drivers,” she explained, alluding to an episode during which they fled at dawn in the opposite direction for more than ten kilometers along the highway. “They could have caused an accident to a driver returning from working a night shift.”
seventy moon landings
After the pandemic, the activity of these gangs of aluniceros has increased. It is clear that they have committed 70 robberies strongly in Catalan commercial establishments with this practice since October 2021, according to the Mossos d’Esquadra. Almost all of them are concentrated in Barcelona and its metropolitan area. attack bitcoin ATMs –because they have cash–, cell phone, tobacco or expensive clothing stores –because there are receivers who buy these products to resell them on the black market, a figure that falls on Luís Tosar in the Calparsoro film–.
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steal high end cars to give the blows –Land Rover, Audi or BMW–. They choose SUV or station wagon models, explains Lieutenant Rico. When they go out to fish at night they don’t elaborate the plan excessively. They choose an establishment and crash the car into the driveway, reversing so as not to damage the engine. They go in, take what they can and run away. In the case of the ‘Wheel’ operation, that’s where it owes its name in part, they stole the cars in Madrid, gave the blows in Barcelona and stomped back to Madrid. Sometimes they stayed overnight in the Catalan city but on other occasions they came and went the same night. To steal the cars “they use connectors that allow them to control the electronic navigation systems,” police sources detail.
Herrera stressed during the press conference the importance of coordinating between police forces of Catalonia and Madrid and join efforts given the mobility of the suspects and their experience, which allows them to use false license plates and make it difficult for the police to locate them in each of the hits. That is the most complicated thing, admit the investigators: they know who they are but who has carried out each of the moon landings must be accredited judicially and it is not easy because they are not tight groups, their members can change. “We will coordinate, it is the message that we want to convey, that they will be persecuted,” Herrera said.