Ten people arrested for stealing vehicles in European countries and transporting them to Spain to register them with false documentation

The Guardia Civil, within the framework of the COMPLUTUM CAR operation, has arrested 10 members of a criminal organisation dedicated to stealing vehicles in European countries, which they transported to Spain to register them with false documentation. The detainees are charged with the crimes of document falsification, receiving stolen goods, fraud, simulating a crime, violating road safety and belonging to a criminal organisation.

During the operation, nine high-end vehicles were recovered, along with a large number of documents for forgery and documents already forged, as well as more than 23,000 euro in cash from the sale of the stolen vehicles. The commission of these crimes has brought the criminal organisation a financial benefit of more than 1,700,000 euro, and the bank accounts of all those arrested have been seized.

The investigation began more than a year ago, when the Central Investigation Group of the Traffic Division detected the activity of a highly specialised criminal group that was dedicated to illegally acquiring vehicles in Germany and registering them in Spain. To do this, they transported them to our country and before registering them, they passed the prior technical inspection with false documentation to obtain the corresponding ITV card.

Thanks to the collaboration with the Provincial Traffic Headquarters, it was possible to obtain that the registration files, where they came with the Spanish technical inspection card and after presenting falsified documentation again, were assigned national number plates. Then, and before the police reported them for theft, they were transferred to third parties who were unaware of their illegal origin.

Thanks to international cooperation with other European police forces, it was possible to determine the cross-border ramifications of this criminal group. In addition, it was found out that the vehicles stolen in Spain were sold on international markets, and in the same way, models stolen in other European countries were sold as legal vehicles, after falsifying all the documents.

High-end vehicles

The members of the criminal organisation fraudulently acquired vehicles of different high-end brands and models in Germany and Spain. Once they were located and inspected, they falsified the documentation they provided so as not to have any problems when purchasing them.

They also travelled from Germany to Spain and legalised the goods with falsified documents for their subsequent introduction into the second-hand or used market.