Spain: Footballers’ homes targeted by gangs of thieves

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang He is the last footballer to be robbed at his home. Gabonese striker football club barcelona joins a list of attacks on footballers’ houses, which recently also included coulee Ansu Fati, Madrid player Karim Benzema, Valencian player Samu Castillejo or Deportivo Alaves player John Guidetti.

Unlike the last one, this morning’s assignment at the house in Castelldefels (Barcelona), where Aubameyang lives, was a very brutal robbery committed by a group of armed robbers who came to threaten and beat the football player and his partner in order to force him to open the safe from which they took valuables.

This is the second robbery of Aubameyang’s home this summer, as thieves also broke into his home a few weeks ago, sources close to the case told Efe. At that time, there was no one in the football player’s house when the thieves entered, according to El Periódico.

take advantage of the absence

This is just a common pattern, since the modus operandi of this type of gang is the absence of a player in his house at the time of the robbery, either because he was playing a game, training or was on vacation.

On January 23, Real Madrid’s French striker Karim Benzema was playing in a league match against Elche at the Bernabéu when robbers ransacked his house, located in the Madrid municipality of San Sebastian de los Reyes. robbers They jumped the fences around the outer perimeter of the house, entered the garden through the pool, and smashed the window with maces to enter the house.

Also at the end of January, Sweden international John Guidetti, a Deportivo Alaves player, reported the theft of several bags from his home in Vitoria, taking advantage of the absence soccer player and his family.

The first match of the championship this season will be remembered by the Valencia striker. Samu Castillejo. When he returned home after playing in the Mestalla against Girona, he found cupboards and drawers smashed from those that were missing, as he himself lamented on social networks, “material, personal and sentimental things.”

Less empty was the home of the Barça striker Ansu Fati in Sant Cugat del Vallès, where several relatives watched the Catalan derby on the first floor camp Nou. Unaware of the attack, the thieves searched the top floor of the house, where they allegedly took money, jewelry and watches.

It’s the booty that interests robbersPolice sources point to Efe, who adds that they tend to pull off robberies quickly and are not interested in high-volume valuables such as high-quality televisions.

SPECIALIZED THIVES

Sources interviewed explain that this type of group consists of “specialists” of different profiles. There are those who dedicate themselves solely to knowing their purpose, their schedules, whether they have a family or not, follow them on social networks, and then there are those who manage security systems and safes to perfection.

Once inside, the goal of these gangs is to “steal” everything that can be “easily obtained” on the black market, such as luxury mobile phones, jewelry or watches, goods that they did not have time to “accommodate” the six thieves. who raided Ibiza at the home of former Brazilian footballer and Real Valladolid president Ronaldo Nazario de Lima in July, and where Italian Paris Saint-Germain footballer Marco Verratti was staying.

Just two days later, a gang of Albanian origin, involved in 15 attacks on luxury villas in the provinces of Alicante, Malaga and Murcia, was arrested by the National Police in the city of Alicante Denia and in Malaga and seized most of what was stolen in Ibiza, amounting to about three million Euro.

On the wrist of their owner, Barcelona footballer Robert Lewandoschi, the watch shines again, snatched from him two weeks ago by an alleged fan when he drove his car into the sports city to train. He rolled down the window to sign autographs, and the thief tore off his luxury watch and fled the scene, though he was arrested soon after.

EFE