Europol: Police in seven European nations stop heist
THE HAGUE - Police in seven European countries have broken up a network that carried out more than 200 carefully choreographed armed robberies of jewelry stores, and channeled $53 million in loot into drugs and real estate, Europol said Wednesday.
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An Italian judge issued European arrest warrants last week for 34 Estonians and one Lithuanian, said a Europol statement. The suspects were caught and houses raided in the two Baltic states as well as Finland, Spain, France and Germany, it said.
Italian police had been working since 2005 on the case. The gang usually deployed teams of up to four thieves to rob high-end jewelry stores in operations often lasting less than a minute, said the agency, which coordinates police intelligence throughout Europe. Stores in at least a dozen other countries were targeted.
Spokesman Soren Pedersen said more arrests were expected around Europe. „This is just the start of a really major police operation”, he said.
The stolen items were swiftly moved out of the country where they were stolen and sold, apparently to finance hashish and cocaine trafficking from Spain to Scandinavia. Loot has turned up on eBay and in pawn shops in Finland and Sweden, the agency said.
Without intelligence cooperation, „it is very unlikely those countries would have know that the group responsible was one and the same,” the statement quoted Europol director Max-Peter Ratzel as saying. (AP)
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