SPANISH police have arrested 34 people in a crackdown on violent gangs that targeted wealthy tourists for their luxury watches on the Costa del Sol and in Ibiza this summer.
The National Police, working with Italy’s Polizia di Stato, have solved 28 violent robberies linked to eight criminal groups.
Suspects also face charges of forging documents, handling stolen goods and causing injury.
Officers recovered six high-end watches, valued at between €20,000 and more than €450,000 each, and one has already been returned to its owner.
The National Police set up a special coordination unit in January to tackle the problem nationally and internationally.
Police say the violence involved is a threat not only to victims but to the image of Spain’s top tourist destinations.
Over the summer, the unit focused on Ibiza and the Costa del Sol, especially Marbella and Estepona, where wealthy holidaymakers gather.
It also covered Barcelona, where several gangs had bases and hideouts, Madrid, a hub for selling on stolen goods, as well as Palma and the port of Denia.
The gangs typically arrived in tourist hotspots for short stays and left as soon as they had struck.
Some posed as tourists in Ibiza and split the work between them. Spotters, often working in male-female pairs, picked out victims on seafront promenades, in marinas, in nightlife spots and in car parks.
Snatchers then grabbed the watches, accomplices on motorbikes made the getaway, and hire cars were used to move the stolen goods on quickly.
Other gangs, based in Barcelona, used extreme violence on their victims, including chokeholds and beatings with motorbike helmets.
To avoid detection, the gangs used fake ID and driving licences, cloned or altered number plates, clothing to hide their faces and, in one case, a signal jammer.
In one of the biggest successes of the operation, officers stopped several members of one gang at Ibiza airport as they tried to fly home. A watch worth more than €450,000 was hidden among one woman’s belongings.
Police also arrested a group outside an Ibiza nightclub just after they had snatched a €50,000 watch.
On the island they also tracked down two fugitives wanted over the violent robbery of a €155,000 watch in Madrid.
On the Costa del Sol, the most serious attack came at the end of July in Marbella, when four men robbed a tourist of his watch at the entrance to his own home.
They were traced to Estepona, where a search recovered the watch and the clothes worn during the robbery.
The gangs stepped up their activity at the end of August to make the most of the last weeks of high season.
In the second half of the month, checks and surveillance at ports and airports led to 20 more arrests before suspects could leave the islands.
As well as the watches, officers seized a car, four motorbikes, 14 fake number plates (two Italian and 12 Spanish), four fake identity documents and driving licences, the jammer and several mobile phones.
All 34 suspects have been brought before a judge. The investigation remains open, and police have not ruled out further arrests.
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