A gang led by El Grúas tore up five ATMs dressed as workers

The clock strikes six in the morning when a group of workers parks their crane next to a bank branch, places the cones around it and begins to unfold their materials.

Rush hour begins in the Madrid municipality of Alcalá de Henares and dozens of cars pass near the group of what look like normal workers.

No one is surprised, until they use the front of the crane to break the glass of the building.

But the reaction time is short: in less than two minutes they surround the ATM with zip ties, the crane accelerates and rips it off.

They load him in the back, cover him with a tarp and flee.

Work done.

They just took more than 100,000 euros before it even dawned.

What they did not know is that that coup perpetrated in January was the beginning of the end for the El Grúas gang, the leader of this group, a 50-year-old Spanish man with several arrests under his belt for robberies and who, when arrested , he told the agents: “It's a good thing you caught me because tonight I was going to give it another shot.”

After the robbery in Alcalá they escape along the highway, but a National Police checkpoint tries to stop them.

The Crane, at the wheel of the vehicle, swerves, crosses the highway like lightning, manages to escape from the agents after getting out of the vehicle and getting into a car that was waiting for him a few kilometers away.

He abandoned the ATM covered with a tarp in the back of the crane, also stolen.

The considered brain of the gang had “spectacular” driving skills, the agents involved in the operation highlight.

El Grúas had recruited his gang since the middle of last year.

This is a group made up of at least three other men, whom he recruited from among his acquaintances for the blows that he wanted to deliver with this particular technique.

In September they gave the first of those that are attributed to this organization, in a town in Guadalajara, then in Madrid capital, in Pinto, in Alcalá de Henares and in a small town in the mountains of Madrid called Navalafuente.

On this last point, the band changed their way of acting a little, because there the ATM was at street level and there was no need to break any glass.

For that hit, they used a truck used to tow damaged vehicles.

This device had just been recently installed in the town after the mayor requested this service from the bank following a complaint from the neighbors.

After acting, they took the ATMs to an abandoned property in El Molar (Madrid) where there was a restaurant years ago.

Two of the band members lived there along with two friendly dogs who became involved in cuddling with the police when they entered to arrest their owner.

Along with his three cronies, he was arrested at the beginning of February accused of five robberies with force and another attempted robbery and membership in a criminal group.

In one of the blows their zip ties had broken and they had to change plans.

That farm was where they forcibly opened the ATMs to empty their guts of bills.

Then they threw the different parts in different places, although investigators from the Madrid Police Headquarters found some carcasses and other parts on the ground in which the name of a banking entity could even be read.

The criminals knew when it was best to act and it corresponded when the devices were fullest because the weekend was about to start or it was pension payment day.

Investigators suspect that they have made off with more than 400,000 euros in four months.

“Before the robberies there was prior planning and one of the important elements is that there was an easy escape route from the place where the branch was located,” explains one of the investigators.

“After dividing the money, they quickly spent it on all kinds of luxuries: cars, dinners, clothes...,” adds another.

They are charged with 19 criminal acts, because other crimes must be added to the violent robberies of the cashiers, such as the theft of all the vehicles they used in the attacks, the falsification of documents and the attack against an authority agent because they put the lives of the police officers were in danger the day they escaped from control in Alcalá de Henares.

Subscribe here