The millionaire robbery at the Hotel-Restaurant Atrio (Cáceres, two Michelin stars) on October 27 has become one of the most mediatic in recent times due to its curious characteristics: a foreign couple stays at the establishment, dinner, and allegedly, in cahoots and distracting the receptionist, takes 45 bottles of wine with an estimated value of 1.6 million euros, at dawn.
Nine months later, and after an arduous investigation, the National Police arrested Constantín Gabriel Dumitru, a 47-year-old Romanian-Dutch citizen, and his girlfriend, Priscila Guevara, a 28-year-old former Mexican
miss
, a sort of
Bonnie and Clyde
lovers of good wine.
They were intercepted on July 19 in their car at the border crossing from Slovenia to Croatia, after the head of the Investigating Court 4 of Cáceres issued a European Arrest Warrant (OED).
The stolen objects have not been found.
One of the weak points in this case is that there is no proof of the crime, there is no trace of the wine.
These are unusual items in the commission of robberies and thefts: bottles of wine and spirits of great value, among which there was presumably a Chateau d'Yquem from 1806 (with an attributed value of 310,000 euros) and six other wines from the century XIX, according to the owners of the establishment.
The thief must have been a good connoisseur of the world of oenology, according to the investigators, "someone fond of wine" who stole "on request, with a buyer closed in advance," they suspect.
However, the numerous stolen bottles (45), led the agents to think that there could have been a "certain improvisation in the robbery", and that "they will take more than initially planned, seeing that it was feasible and, probably,
believing that they had a way to sell that merchandise on the market later”.
The fact is that the trail of the bottles has been lost or has not been followed, the investigators have so far not found any trace of those expensive wines, allegedly stolen by Dumitru and Guevara.
Constantín Gabriel and Priscila Lara Guevara, at the Atrio restaurant, on the day of the theft of 45 bottles of wine.
Two doors and one card: robbery or theft.
The Police assure that the thief entered the cellar using a specific card to open the door, although they have not been able to determine how the alleged perpetrator of the robbery, Constantín Dumitru, could get hold of that key or a copy of it.
There are no images, because supposedly there are no cameras after that white door, behind which all those high-value bottles were kept, in a cellar that is accessed through a second glass door.
The defense, exercised by the lawyer Sylvia Córdoba, has requested these recordings (if they exist).
If there are no images of that area, it cannot be proven that the alleged perpetrator of the robbery reached the glass area.
On the other hand, it remains to be ruled out that access to the cellar would have been possible because both doors had been open.
In that case,
The value of wine.
It is the value of the stolen merchandise that can be an aggravating circumstance and increase the penalty attributable to the crime charged to the defendants, whether it is considered robbery or theft.
The penalty for this last crime is from six to 18 months in prison, but "if the things stolen have an artistic, historical, cultural or scientific value" it can be up to three years;
and it's three to six years for theft.
From the outset, it was estimated that the value of the 45 missing bottles was 1.6 million euros, without a judicial expert opinion having been commissioned.
That estimate is the one made by an expert in oenology, whose report was provided by the victims of the robbery.
Both the renowned chef Toño Pérez and his companion and partner in the restaurant, the sommelier José Polo, appealed to the sentimental and historical value of those bottles,
which they called “the jewels of Atrio”: “That bottle [referring to the Chateau d'Yquem] was part of my personal history, almost part of me, of the history of Atrio, but also of Cáceres, of its citizens, of all lovers of the wine world;
she is
the bottle
, impossible to replace because of the effort, sacrifice and love for a profession and for wine.
215 years of history in Spain, of wars, times of peace and the construction of a united Europe”, Polo said in a letter signed by him and by Pérez and released to the press.
The phones and the preparation of a perfect heist.
Although the Police investigators assure that Dumitru and Guevara were three times before in Atrio to prepare the robbery, none of the employees has declared having seen them there prior to the date of the robbery.
The agents' conclusions ("they were there in June, August and September; the first two times having dinner and a third, eating") are based on the triangulations and geolocations of the suspects' phones, which place them in that place or nearby on different dates.
The question will be to show that those phones were in the possession of the accused.
The Mexican 'miss' Priscila Lara Guevara.
Hotel registration and anthropometric test.
Priscila Guevara allegedly checked into the hotel under a false identity using a Swiss passport in the name of Mirka Golubic, according to investigators.
She is the only one to appear in the registration book, as Constantin Dumitru did not register at any time.
The question now, and for what the defense requested several anthropometric studies, is whether the woman who appears in the photograph of that Swiss identity card is Priscila Guevara, or she only "looks alike", as the police report collects.
"She was wearing a wig and glasses that were too big for her," Carmina Márquez, the hotel's director, assured this newspaper.
It was she who checked her DNI, before she paid the 300 euros (plus VAT) for her stay with a prepaid card.
However, the anthropometric report concludes:
DNA.
Another pending test is DNA.
It has been requested
a posteriori
by the Police and appealed by the defense.
With it, it is intended to determine without any doubt that the detainees were the ones who were that night in room number 107 of Atrio.
Pending cases
.
It was precisely a pending case in Spain of Constantin Dumitru that put the police on his track.
The same
modus operandi
”.
An expensive bottle thief who had been arrested because, according to an employee of Lavinia, a luxurious wine bar located on Madrid's so-called Golden Mile, he was the person who was in the establishment the day a 5,250 bottle of whiskey disappeared. euros.
Later, the investigators discovered that Dumitru had also been intercepted at the Geneva airport (Switzerland) for the theft of another bottle, although there is no sentence in this regard.
However, the suspect was in Madrid at liberty for these events, which occurred in June 2019, and had appeared at the police station when requested.
In addition, he had rented a house for years in the Campo de las Naciones area (Madrid), his daughter lived in the Barajas area and died while he was outside of Spain, so he returned to attend the funeral of the.
Priscilla,
For his part, he was studying in Madrid and had a part-time job.
All data that do not agree with the alleged "flight risk" that has led the judge to order preventive detention since last August.
This same week the trial for the theft of the whiskey bottle was held in Madrid, in which Constatín Dumitru testified by videoconference, and he was seen for sentencing.
45 bottles in three backpacks.
There is one last question that remains unclear: How do 45 bottles of wine, supposedly wrapped in towels and sheets, fit into three backpacks?
How long does it take to sort them out of a warehouse and up to a room to be carefully wrapped?
According to police investigators, Dumitru left the hotel at dawn, around 5:30, on foot and carrying three backpacks in which he allegedly carried the stolen merchandise.
According to the agents, the couple scheduled their escape by road alternating several vehicles.
The police located the first one and learned that, the next day, they had reserved a table at another famous Madrid restaurant with a cellar similar to Atrio's, and they canceled the reservation.
Perhaps they had already struck their
big blow
.