A judge was investigating the robbers who killed the Tortosa bingo worker at least since August

The bingo hall in Tortosa (Tarragona) where a woman was shot to death last Monday and a customer was injured. EUROPA PRESS (EUROPA PRESS)

The head of the Court of First Instance and Instruction 3 of Tudela (Navarra), Carmen García Anciso, has been investigating at least since August the gang of robbers who allegedly killed a bingo employee in Tortosa (Tarragona) on September 19 and seriously injured another customer.

In the car that confirms the imprisonment of another alleged member of the group, arrested in Navarra last Tuesday, she confirms that the Civil Guard had tapped the telephones of the criminals.

The National Police also followed in their footsteps, and ended up arresting two of them in a joint operation with the Mossos d'Esquadra.

More information

Three hooded robbers kill a bingo worker in Tortosa with a shot to the head

The Civil Guard, directed by the court, was investigating a robbery committed on August 19 at the Avanze casino and games room, in the town of Cintruénigo (Navarra).

The investigations maintain that the brothers Ayoub E. and Mohamed E., allegedly involved in Tortosa, together with Daniel Leonardo S. entered with weapons, without being able to specify whether they were real or simulated, and robbed the gambling house.

In the judge's order there is talk of the alleged participation of a fourth person, only identified by the name of Abdul.

In the document that orders the entry into prison without bail of Daniel Leonardo S., the magistrate points out that the investigated had their phones tapped and that evidence was obtained to support her decision to imprison the arrested person.

The two brothers and a woman, the partner of one of them, are the three suspected of killing the woman at the Tortosa bingo hall, after fleeing Navarra and settling in the Tarragona area.

One of the alleged perpetrators, the eldest, has fled and the Civil Guard locates him in France, according to police sources, after confirming that the van he was driving skipped a police checkpoint on the border with the Basque Country.

The Mossos were unaware that the gang was in Catalonia, lament police sources.

As soon as the murder of the bingo worker hit the media, on Monday, the National Police went to the Mossos d'Esquadra.

Police sources assure that they provided them with all the information they had on the suspects, who they believed could be the authors of the bingo robbery, and gave them the license plate of a car, which they located.

They formed a joint team and waited for the suspects to arrive to arrest them.

Five people were arrested, although three were released as they were not related to the events and were not brought to justice.

The juvenile court did order the internment of another of those arrested and, later, the Tortosa guard court issued a prison order without bail for the woman.

The Civil Guard also contacted the Mossos after learning about the robbery in Tortosa.

But he did it later and without sharing his information, Catalan police sources say.

Some time before, the armed institute and the National Police had informed the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO, an agency of the Ministry of the Interior in charge of coordinating the different police forces to avoid lack of coordination between them) that they were investigating the same people, but then they did not create a joint team.

Police sources assure that the Civil Guard refused, alleging that their investigation was more advanced.

The alleged lack of police coordination flies over the Tortosa robbery that ended with a dead woman and a seriously injured man.

Other police sources insist that the suspects had never used such violence, and that it was difficult to foresee that they would end up carrying out a hit like this, where they shot two people in cold blood.

In the case of the robbery at the Cintruénigo gambling house, the three suspects entered the premises with their faces covered with balaclavas and with pistols – which the investigation has not been able to determine if they were real or simulated – but they did not use them.

Other sources, on the other hand, criticize that the regional police were not informed or that they waited to arrest some people who were already under the spotlight.

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