A group of private, security guards in Estepona were arrested by the Policía Nacional, suspected armed robbery.

The three arrested men, aged between 37 and 48, were employed by the administration of a luxury urbanización but instead of protecting it, they allegedly burst into the guard post wearing hoods and brandishing firearms and tied up the guard on duty.

After beating the guard up they bound him and locked him in a cupboard. The villains then headed for two luxury villas, one of which had their owners in residence; a Belgian couple whom they tied them up and then lifted anything of value.

It was two anglers that came across the guard, tied up and with a bloodied face and immediately phoned 091 – the urbanización is very close to the beach. The police arrived, freed him (the aggressors had used his own cuffs on him), and took him to hospital because of injuries to his head. He explained how he had been surprised by the robbers in the early hours of the morning.

The police immediately set about inspecting the dwellings on the complex and found the two that had been targeted. The first thing they came across were tie-offs in one of the room and soon after that the room where the Belgian couple were, bound and gagged on the roof terrace.

Questioned, the couple explained that they had been in bed when the robbers entered. They were quickly tied up and the thieves set about searching the dwelling, finding jewels and bankcards. Under threats of further violence the couple told them the pin numbers.

The suspected then allegedly went to a second house, which was empty, and came away with jewels worth 70.000 euros.

What led to the three men coming under suspicion was that the keys to the homes raided were in a safe in the guard room, and as the guard on duty didn’t tell them the combination, they obviously knew it. Furthermore, some of the bankcards had been used in San Pedro Alcántara, in Marbella and before long one of the three was identified, which lead to the identification and arrest of all three men.

The police then obtained search warrants for the homes of the suspects and found firearms, both real and replicas, as well as the clothes worn on the day of the robbery and walkie-talkies.

Editorial comment: private security guards in some cases have fire-arm licences and certainly have walkie-talkies, so perhaps they’re not exactly incriminating evidence in this case.

(News: Estepona, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)