Overview
- Guardia Civil arrested 39 people on Friday in Ávila, La Rioja and Córdoba after a more-than-yearlong probe into repeated copper-cable thefts.
- Investigators say the group stole 157 tonnes of copper across at least 33 incidents and recovered 22 tonnes during the operation.
- Police located an industrial warehouse in Logroño and traced additional storage points in France and Portugal used to consolidate loads for road shipment to Romania.
- The thefts damaged telephone infrastructure, cost more than one million euros in material losses and disrupted public services in affected provinces.
- Authorities carried out the raid with the French Gendarmerie and Portugal’s Guarda Nacional Republicana and will focus next on prosecutions, tracing proceeds and closing export channels.