26 arrested for exploiting their minor children to commit robberies with violence and theft in Madrid

The National Police has dismantled a Romanian criminal organization dedicated to the exploitation of children for criminal purposes.

They forced minors to commit robberies and robberies with violence from vulnerable people due to their condition or age while they extracted money from ATMs,

During the operation, five entries and searches have been carried out in homes, 26 arrests have been made and 37 unimpeachable minors have been placed under protection who, being less than 14 years old, do not have criminal responsibility despite being involved in the robberies. Most of the detainees are charged with the crimes of trafficking in human beings for the purpose of criminal exploitation, belonging to a criminal organization and crime against family rights and duties, the parents being the ones who forced their own children to commit crimes.

The hard core of the organization is made up of a total of 18 adults and eight minors between the ages of 14 and 18, in addition to 37 children under 14 years of age. The detainees resided in five squatted homes in Getafe and Fuenlabrada, in deplorable health and hygiene conditions. The exploited children lived crammed into flats. The agents found up to five minors inside a room. They slept on the floor, they were not clean and they were forced to

12-hour days.

The agents believe that each robbery could appropriate between 600 and 1,000 euros. In the case that the minors did not pay attention, the adults exhibited their "heavy hand", since they even beat the minors. A third of the exploited minors have no family in Madrid and were bought by the organization from their families in Romania in exchange for about 5,000 euros. The origin of these children is one of the pending investigations that still have ahead of the agents of the Higher Headquarters of the National Police of Madrid who have developed the Nastase operation, in reference to the former Romanian tennis player.

The investigation began in December of last year when the agents detected an increase in

throughout the Community of Madrid. Once they analyzed all the documentation, they verified that there was a common pattern in all of them, which made them think that they could be the same authors.

After the first investigations, they discovered that there was an organized group of five family clans that used and

, who in many cases were their own children, to commit these criminal acts.

The criminal network had a perfectly defined structure with a clear distribution of tasks.

At the top were the parents of two families who were in charge of deciding the area of ​​action of the minors to commit the robberies, as well as the criminal procedure.

One of those detained by the National Police JSPM

Subsequently, subordinate to them and under their orders, they coordinated the actions of intermediaries, who were in charge of transporting the minors to the place of commission of the facts, also participating in such criminal actions.

In the

who were the ones who carried out the assaults.

"They left home at eight in the morning and returned at eight in the afternoon. They did not go home or to eat," María Soria, inspector of Group XVI of the Organized Crime Section, explained this Thursday at a press conference. of the Judicial Police.

Investigators have found that the minors increased their violence over time since in their last actions they pushed or threw their victims, all of them elderly, to the ground.

"

" said Simón Facal, chief inspector of Grupo XVI.

Once their workday was over, while they were returning home in an Uber, the adults showed on social networks such as TikTok the wads of bills they had obtained.

The final destination of the stolen money, estimated at "hundreds of thousands of euros", was Romania where the clans did show their wealth and had more properties.

Transfers of minors

Those arrested moved the minors out of the country as they reached their age or began to be recognized by the agents.

even acting in other parts of the European Union carrying out what they themselves called a "criminal tour". The modus operandi consisted of staying in the vicinity of banking entities waiting for a victim - mostly vulnerable people by condition or age - to approach to withdraw cash.

At the time of making the withdrawals, they distracted and harassed the victim while another managed to get the money. On other occasions they used violence, even hitting the victims until they fell to the ground. They have also spit on the elderly to commit theft. Once the investigators managed to identify the entire criminal structure of

, they carried out on October 13 a police device in which almost a hundred agents participated for the arrest of all of them and the search of five homes located in Getafe and Fuenlabrada .

They found cash, several high-end watches, mobile phones and various documentation that is being analyzed by investigators. The bulk of the operation has been carried out by group XVI of the Judicial Police Brigade.

and the Group of Minors, GRUME, the Romanian police authorities and the Spanish Interior Attaché in Romania

.

After passing at the disposal of the judicial authority and the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office, five of the 26 arrested for the

. Likewise, it should be noted that these arrests have allowed the clarification of more than 200 property crimes committed at ATMs in different parts of the country. The 37 unimpeachable minors, also implicated in criminal actions, were placed, through the Group of Minors of the National Police, under the protection of the Social Emergencies Service of the CCMM and the Red Cross.

The investigations of the Group XVI of the Judicial Police are still open since there are unknowns to unravel, such as the destination of the money or the unknown family ties of the minors.

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