When you use a rental car, you're careful not to dent it, otherwise your credit card will melt to cover the damages. Not our hero!

This 49-year-old man, who has an impressive criminal record, hired a van to carry off his booty – that was the idea, but when he parked outside an electronics warehouse in Atarfe and tried his cordless disc cutter on the lock, it failed miserably.

What’s more, there were two cars parked in front of the warehouse. So, he broke the side windows to release the hand brakes and put them in neutral and used the van to shunt them out of the way. So far, not too good for the paint work.

Then he must have thought, “in for a penny; in for a pound” and rammed the rented van through the entrance door – no problem.

Of course, the alarm went off, the security company phoned the Guardia Civil, who immediately despatched two patrol cars and caught him red-handed loading the van with computer (IT) equipment, so he hot footed it leaving the vehicle behind.

Inside the van the thief had managed to load four 65-inch screens, 20 tablets, two computer monitors, one projector and 30, voltage-regulated, multi-plug sockets, all of which had a combined worth of around 10,000 euros.

Amazingly, the thief had used his own name etc to hire the van the previous day – he hadn’t expected to use it as a ram and end up abandoning it at the scene of the break in. He obviously hadn’t thought it through, which might explain the extensive criminal record.

(News: Atarfe, Vega, Granada, Andalucia)