Madrid (EFE).- In just 40 seconds they stole a car, without forcing it and with the most sophisticated means. It was done by a gang to which the Civil Guard has dealt a major blow with the arrest of its five members and the recovery of 13 vehicles, in an operation that the General Directorate of the body reported on Thursday.
Their objective was practically new hybrid cars of brands and models with a high demand in the current market, as sources from the investigation have stressed to EFE, who have also recalled that the lack of spare parts and parts due to the war in Ukraine also it is leading to the theft of older vehicles.
Under the direction of the Investigating Court number 1 of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), the Automobile Organized Crime Section of the Central Operating Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard has dismantled a group specialized in the theft of cars, the falsification of their identification elements and the transfer to third countries for sale.
It was a year ago when the investigations began after verifying an increase in theft of certain models and when, thanks to police cooperation with other countries, a car stolen in August 2022 in Germany was located in the northwest of the Community of Madrid and was He learned of another stolen in Madrid and sold and recovered in Hungary.
From “scanning” to “cooling”
The members of the criminal gang traveled to different parts of Spain to “scout” and select their targets. As the sources have specified to EFE, they used public transport to go unnoticed.
Once the car to be stolen was chosen, they controlled its owner’s movements and schedules, as well as the place where it was parked, including garages if necessary.
With the technical means at their disposal, they even managed to capture the frequency of the garage opening commands and, of course, of the cars.
At the moment they considered safest, they would go to the place and with a handmade computer tool, equipped with malicious software that made it possible to circumvent the electronic security measures installed by the manufacturer, they would open and start the vehicle in 40 seconds “without absolutely forcing nothing ”, emphasize the sources.
Thanks to the mechanical workshop that one of the members of the gang had in Alcalá de Henares, they managed to manufacture registration plates corresponding to legal vehicles of the same make, model and color.
Once the license plate was installed and the environmental markings were stripped, the cars were parked in “cooling” places. That is, in shopping center car parks or in others where many vehicles park because they went unnoticed there.
They kept them parked for several days to check if they had a geolocation device that would allow their owner or the security forces to locate them.
Perfect fakes to leave no trace
Afterwards, the cars were transferred to different parts of the Spanish geography where other members of the organization modified the physical records of the vehicles, such as the chassis number or the manufacturer’s identifying stickers, including those that are usually placed on the door of the car. driver.
But they also modified the registration numbers recorded in the Electronic Control Unit. During this process, they generated new ignition keys, electronically coded with the new car data, which would allow them to pass an in-depth inspection.
The network had industrial warehouses to hide the stolen vehicles in Alicante and Murcia waiting to be transported to other countries where they could already be registered, obtain new documentation and be sold on the legal market.
A gondola truck carrying vehicles to Lithuania
UCO agents have verified that some of these cars left Spain in the direction of eastern Europe in gondola trucks. This is the case, for example, of one stolen in Madrid and located in the Lithuanian city of Uzbaliai.
The operation has resulted in the arrest of five people -three of Russian nationality, one Romanian and one Spanish-, as well as the recovery of 13 stolen vehicles, abundant material for the theft, such as a license plate die-cutter, security devices, geolocation, more than 100 blank keys to program, machinery to manufacture them, inhibitors and frequency sensors, among others.
It is, therefore, a highly specialized group trained in the sophisticated technical means they used, the sources say.
Although it has not yet been possible to estimate the benefit obtained by the organization with this activity, the researchers consider that it has had to compensate the investment in the “tools” used for the robberies.