Ibiza police capture six violent gang members involved in luxury watch robberies

National Police officers in Ibiza have arrested six alleged members of a criminal organisation dedicated to stealing high-end watches, the police force said in a statement last Saturday.

Those arrested have between 29 and 36 years of age. Five of them are “of Arab origin” and the other is a French citizen, the statement said. The detainees “had moved to the island of Ibiza,” the statement said taking advantage of the increase of tourists” and the opening of seasonal businesses and nightlife establishments, he details.

The police arrested four of them as they were preparing to leave the island with false documentation which they used to “carry out all legal procedures, as well as hotel reservations, airline flights, shipments and car rentals,” according to the police. Among their belongings, they found one of the stolen watches.

The detainees were returning from the island after the organization committed two robberies over the weekend, one of them of a watch valued at 45,000 euros. They committed one of the crimes in the area of es Viver and Platja d’en Bossa, while the other took place on the seafront. “In one of the robberies, the alleged perpetrators came to use excessive violence, three men attacked the victim beating him to the ground, while spraying him in the eyes with pepper spray, thus managing to steal a high-end watch,” the note specifies.

The hit was completed with the arrest of two more components of the criminal group the day after the first four arrests. Again, it was found another watch high-end watch, but the provenance could not be credited at this time. Agents are investigating and do not rule out “new arrests and imputations of other facts of similar characteristics to the members of the criminal group”.

Modus operandi

The National Police details that these groups select “a victim in local or areas frequented by tourists”, and assign “three or four” individuals from the organization to follow them, “choose the right moment and act quickly and surprisingly”. He details that they always seek an escape route and that “they do not hesitate to use violence”. “The methodology used by these organized groups is well known on the island,” said the police.

The note adds that “these people took numerous security measures to make the investigation more difficult and so that the existing relationships between them could not be determined.”