Always when a period comes around when people go on holiday, burglars are alert to empty properties as targets, using tricks to discover where.

One method that is still in use is to lay a thin string of silicone between a door jamb and the door; if somebody opens it, then they know that the dwelling is in use, if it remains unbroken over 24/48 hours, they known the owners/tenants are away.

Fortunately, the police are on the look out for this kind of trick, which bore fruit with the arrest of a 37-year-old man from Eastern Europe (Georgian) who allegedly belongs to a gang that specialises in this method. This gang has no fixed operating point and moves around Spain

This suspect, besides having a criminal record, is thought to have been behind at least three burglaries carried out in flats in the Beiro District of the city of Granada.

The police caught up with the arrested man after receiving a call from a resident in a block of flats to say that two people with no connections to any of the blocks residents had gained access to the building. This neighbour had heard them fiddling with a front-door lock on a lower floor.

A patrol was rapidly sent to the block of flats and the officers noticed that all the doors had silicone applied to the them. Some had been broken by people in residence; others not.

Unfortunately, there were no suspects about so the police decided to discretely stake out the building to see who was coming and going.

Around 02.30h one morning they saw somebody leaving the building and who ran off when the officers approached  them in pursuit. They managed to catch up with him about 500 metres later. However, they saw another man leaving the building when they were already at a distance and were unable to intercept.

As part of the investigation the police had contacted the owners of the two flats that had the silicone thread broken. They informed the police that they had not been to their properties in the last two days; one flat was having renovation work done on it and the other owner, who said that he wasn’t missing anything from their flat. Another owner was away on holiday and after being contacted, he returned to find the flat turned over.

(News/Noticias: City & Metropolitan Area, Granada, Andalucia)