Five men, ages 22 to 31, were arrested on suspicion of being behind a series of burglaries, robberies, safecrackings and an attempted bank robbery. The leader of the gang is a former police officer and the members are all sportsmen.
Denis Rotaru, department head at the Special Cases Prosecutor’s Office, told a press conference that the gang’s activity was monitored from September 2017, during which time it committed more than 20 offenses.
The gang was very effectively organized, with their jobs done in under 60 seconds. They didn’t carry phones on the job and used encrypted radios to avoid being traced down.
Searches performed by the police revealed various amounts of cash in different currencies, weed, radio devices, a metal detector, and a wooden clubs used during their raids.
Total damages from the gang’s crimes are estimated at about 2 million lei.
Further steps are taken to identify and arrest all the gang’s members, some of them abroad. Two of the arrested suspects were previously convicted of similar offenses. The gang members now face 10 to 15 years in prison.
