Two arrested for stealing high-end watches in Marbella and Ibiza

National Police officers have arrested two middle-aged men as allegedly being responsible for three robberies with violence and for membership of a criminal group. The arrests, carried out in Barcelona, were in relation to the theft of three high-end watches in Marbella and Ibiza.

In a statement the National Police said that on 8 October a luxury watch, valued at 20,000 euros, was stolen in Ibiza using a well-known modus operandi which consists of approaching the victim posing as a beggar and using force. The serious crime group of the National Police in Ibiza tracked a vehicle involved in the incident and identified two of the three occupants.

The investigators found that the alleged perpetrators left Ibiza the next day on a boat bound for Barcelona. Evidence showed that one of them had taken part in two similar robberies in Marbella several months earlier.

Both of the Moroccan men were detained in Barcelona, and face criminal charges for being members of an itinerant gang dedicated to the theft of high-end watches in Spain, police said.