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Half-naked ‘secret agent’ hijacks ambulance

A shirtless and barefoot 43-year-old man stole an ambulance carrying four passengers on Monday in the small Spanish town of Vélez-Malaga by pretending to be a secret agent.

Published: 21 May 2014 17:26 CEST

Half-naked 'secret agent' hijacks ambulance

The thief commandeered the ambulance and ordered his passengers to fasten their seat belts, then turned on the emergency lights. Photo: Diego Tuson/AFP

"I'm secret police, I'm injured, and I'm on a secret mission."

Although it sounds like a line from the script of a Hollywood action movie, this dramatic phrase was actually used by a creative criminal to steal an ambulance containing four poorly passengers at 7:30am on Monday morning.

Leaping into the driver's seat, the barefoot bandit ordered the astonished patients to fasten their safety belts before turning on the emergency lights and setting off.

When the passengers asked who he was and what he was doing, he told them he was on a secret mission then pretended to talk to the police via the ambulance's radio.

The thief had taken advantage of a slip by the ambulance's real driver who had left the vehicle with the engine running while he went back inside to pick up some documentation.

The driver spotted the interloper making off with his ambulance and immediately called the police who headed straight for the scene.

They arrived to find the ambulance being intercepted by the real driver after a total trip of less than 1,000 metres.

All four passengers were reported to be unharmed, according to the website of Spanish TV channel Cadena Ser.

Police arrested the man, who was said to have no driving licence, and charged him with motor vehicle theft and reckless driving.

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How to change the registered address for your car if you move in Spain

When you buy a car in Spain the driving authority, the Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT), asks you to register your car so that you (and they) can have a reference of where it is, who owns it and, crucially, where you’ll pay tax on it.

This information is necessary because paying vehicle tax in Spain (known as Impuesto sobre Vehículos de Tracción Mecánica or IVTM) depends on where in the country you live, and differs slightly depending on the municipality where you are registered.

You pay the tax in the municipality in which the vehicle is registered, and though the exact amount depends on your area and the type of car you have, generally speaking the annual tax is between €112 and €300 for the year.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: What you need to know about road tax in Spain

IVTM is a tax you pay at the municipal level, that is, to your local town hall. According to the DGT, “the Traffic Tax of a vehicle is a mandatory tax that is applied on all motor vehicles, allowing them to circulate on public roads throughout the country”.

But what happens if you move?

Well, it depends. If you’re moving but staying within the same municipality, not much, but if you’re moving across the country to a new part of Spain, you’ll need to change your car’s registered address with the DGT.

How can you request a change of tax address for your car in Spain?

Any change of tax address must be requested by the owner of the vehicle or a duly authorised person on their behalf. There are four ways to request it:

Online – this is done through the DGT’s website, which you can find here. If it’s a general application, you shouldn’t need to attach any documentation. You can simply change the address of all your vehicles or select only those you wish to modify, choosing between the registration address or the tax address of the owner.

For vehicles moving from the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla to the Spanish mainland peninsula or the Balearic Islands, or agricultural vehicles or those with any type of legal limitations or restrictions, you must make the application through the special cases option (supuestos especiales on the DGT website).

In this case, you essentially need to get documentation proving that the car has been cleared through customs. If it is an agricultural vehicle, you will need to provide the document showing that you have reported the change in Spain’s Official Register of Agricultural Machinery (ROMA).

By phone –- call 060, which is the number in Spain to get through to the Servicio de Información de la Administración General del Estado, essentially the go-to contact number for all things public services and administration. You can contact the DGT through this number, where they will check that the address you indicate coincides with the one on the INE register and, if so, make the requested change for you.

READ ALSO: The tricks drivers use to pay less in car taxes in Spain

DGT App — If you have the miDGT app, you can also change your address through the platform.

In person — you can also change your vehicle’s tax address at your town hall (ayuntamiento) where you are currently registered (pre-move) or at any DGT traffic office, though you will need to make an appointment online or by phone beforehand. You can do that here.

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