drug dealer
In a routine operation on a Tuesday in Malaga, national police detained a figure identified as the leader of one of Spain’s most active luxury car theft rings. Fresh out of jail, the suspect had been under a three-year compliance agreement. He had been spotted in Calderón, near Estepona, preparing to board a stolen SUV just days earlier. Authorities report three related arrests in the prior eight months, all tied to similar schemes.
Once investigators located his whereabouts, officers moved in to make the arrest. The recent surge in high-end vehicle theft across the region began in December and has included a series of kidnappings within a short period. Investigators believe the group is linked to a larger organization focused on illegal vehicle trafficking. Law enforcement, part of broader organized crime probes, suspects a senior member is directing the activity. That organization was dismantled in June, with members released from custody at that time.
Officials note that the network active last summer conducted surveillance along the Malaga coast, from Nerja to Estepona, targeting upscale residential areas. The gang mapped vehicles with theft potential and exploited available technical resources to execute their plans. They operated in teams, carrying out nighttime robberies on street vehicles and those stored in shared or private garages.
To gain entry, suspects employed a range of tools and tactics, including signal jammers and frequency analyzers to clone garage doors. They then disabled alarms, accessed vehicles through immobilizers, decoding devices, and physical tools, and finally detached cars using cloned keys. In several cases, they tried to thwart tracking by disabling geolocation devices with signal inhibitors.
Within the same operation, the gang also functioned as a drug-distribution network. The stolen models were mainly four-wheel-drive vehicles with high engine power and payload capacity, repurposed to enable drug trafficking and support for larger criminal entities. The Gibraltar region has emerged as a payment hub for these activities, with transactions reaching up to 6,000 euros per vehicle in some cases.
Following a thorough investigation, authorities located one of the group’s leaders in Cerrado de Calderón. His role reportedly included stealing vehicles, moving them to secure storage locations, and preparing them for removal. He was arrested last Tuesday while attempting to enter a stolen jeep in Estepona and now awaits further proceedings at the Malaga Magistrates’ Court.