Agents of the Spanish National Police and the Police of Catalonia dismantled an organized criminal group that stole high-end vehicles, after renting them with fake documents and then sold them in Libya and Algeria. Source Jornel de Noticais

In a joint statement, police explained that four men – three men and one woman of Moroccan and Tunisian nationality – had been detained in the operation and that the group had rented one million euros worth of vehicles in Spain, Portugal, Germany and Luxembourg.

Once the vehicles were rented, the members of this criminal group replaced the license plates with false ones and transported the cars to the port of Genoa, Italy, where they were shipped to Tunis, Tunisia, and then proceeded by land to the place of sales.

According to the Spanish news agency EFE, a large number of documents related to the illicit traffic of vehicles have been seized in the households that the group members had registered in the cities of El Papiol, Centelles and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (all in the province of Barcelona) computer, credit cards, different car keys, a fake document detector, number plates and a forger kit.

The police operation began in May 2016, when the Catalan police learned that a man of Spanish nationality and Tunisian origin had stolen several high-end vehicles in several European countries to send them to the African continent.

Given the coincidence of another parallel investigation of the same criminal group by the National Police, a joint investigation team was created under the supervision of the judicial authority.

The detainees are charged with 20 crimes of misappropriation, falsification of documents and money laundering.

After being heard by the authorities, one of the three detainees was held in custody.