They stole copper and with their actions they generated serious problems for the circulation of the Mediterranean corridor. This is what the Court of Valencia understands, which has sentenced four members of a specialized gang to sentences of between two and four and a half years in prison for several thefts of copper cable from the electrification facilities of the railway line that connects Barcelona and Valencia.
The Chamber considers all of them to be perpetrators of a continued crime of robbery of things with force in competition with a crime of integration of a criminal group. The sentence imposes four and a half years in prison on the main accused, while the other two are sentenced to four years and the fourth to two years in prison, depending on the assessment, in each case, of mitigating circumstances of drug addiction and mental alteration.
As stated in the resolution, the robberies occurred between January and July 2022, when those convicted focused on the provinces of Valencia, Castellón and Tarragona, although they also acted in Barcelona or Lleida.
The gang followed the same method to obtain copper from railway facilities. First, they cut off the electricity supply with the intention of disabling the alarm system of the electrical stations or substations. Next, they cut the cable from the tops of the poles and, once on the ground, they cut it, extracted it from the tracks, loaded it and quickly took it away to immediately sell it in scrap yards at scrap prices.
To access the area of ??the railway line, closed with a two-meter-high metal fence, the convicts used shears with which they opened the fence to be able to remove the stolen material.
Likewise, to enter the closed areas of the electrical substations, a key point for robberies, they climbed the walls, some of them up to three meters high, and forced the locks of the doors or motor boxes.
The convicts, who had their residence fixed in different parts of Catalonia, stole copper cable from substations in Sagunto, Alcanar-Vinaròs and Torreblanca, corresponding to the Valencia North-Tarragona line.
They also acted in five other substations of the conventional Barcelona-Madrid line, located in the provinces of Tarragona and Lleida. Furthermore, the week before being arrested, they tried it at three more points on the Barcelona commuter line.
In total, they stole 8,736 meters of cable which, based on the calculation made by the Railway Infrastructure Administrator (Adif), are valued at 253,347 euros. This amount, together with the 108,500 euros in which the labor to replace the stolen material has been valued, raises the total sum of the years caused to 363,300 euros.
These actions affected the safety system on the tracks and therefore the circulation of trains. The convicted persons must now face the civil liability derived from these damages jointly and severally, as stated in the ruling.
