A 38-year-old man from Tarragona has been arrested for simulating a robbery in his automotive workshop, to collect on insurance he had just taken out. The events date back to December, when the arrested person reported that two vans had been stolen from the establishment he ran.
The inconsistencies in the complainant’s story, and other falsehoods detected, such as that some elevators that he still had in the premises had been stolen, caused the Mossos d’Esquadra to open an investigation. The material that he reported had been stolen had a value of 150,000 euros, the same amount for which he had taken out a policy from the insurance company. The man has a police record for another case of simulation of a crime.
When the Mossos opened the investigation, they realized that the video surveillance cameras had not recorded anything because the alarm company had no warning nor detected any intrusion into the ship. With images of another adjacent warehouse, it was proven that the alleged thieves had entered the workshop with the company’s own keys. In the recordings you can see unknown people opening one of the doors of the workshop and later stealing the two vans.
According to the owner of the workshop, the thieves had forced a window at the back of the warehouse and had stolen the two vehicles, as well as spare parts, eight vehicle lifts and material stored in an attic for a total value of 150,000 euros.
The contradictions, inconsistencies and falsehoods in the victim’s statement made the agents suspicious. Among others, the eight vehicle lifts that had supposedly been stolen were still in the workshop. A few days later, the complainant notified the police that he had been able to locate one of the vans, in Reus, because it was equipped with a geolocation device, an issue that he did not detail at any time in the complaint.