Motril Port Customs and the Guardia Civil have recovered 128 stolen solar panels that were being smuggled over to the North Africa via the Moroccan port of Nador.

The panels, worth some 34,400 euros, had been stolen from the factory where they were made in Noceto (Parma, Italy).

Consequently a 29-year-old Moroccan man, residing in Salerno (Italy) has been arrested and charged with receiving stolen goods.

The discovery was made on the 11th of May as the solar panels were going through customs to be loaded onto the Volcán de Teno ferry. They were on board a Iveco van with Italian plates. The van also contained three fridges, a washing machine and a lote of handbags.

The police had simply picked four series numbers out of the 128 solar panels and checked them against SIS data (Schengen Information System) and they flagged up, so they contacted their Italian counterparts and discovered that the 128 panels were part of 1,076 that had been stolen onthe 28th of April.

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)