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CRIME

Police sprinting champ bags Spanish purse snatchers

Two Spanish robbers who tried to flee on foot after snatching a bag containing 3,000 euros ($3,300) met with more than they bargained for when one of the police officers pursuing them turned out to be a record-holding sprinter.

Published: 24 December 2019 15:12 CET
Police sprinting champ bags Spanish purse snatchers
Photo: Depositphotos

The pair snatched the bag on Friday from a man who had just been to a bank in the southern Spanish city of Seville, the city's emergency services said on its official Twitter feed. 

He quickly alerted the police, saying the bag snatchers had fled in a car. After realising the police were on their tail, they abandoned the car and tried to run — but were quickly outpaced, Seville's ABC newspaper reported.

“The suspects, who had just stolen more than 3,000 euros in Seville, didn't know that one of the local police officers who was chasing them was a world-record-holding relay runner, and a Spanish champion with a European masters record for 400 metres,” the emergency services tweeted.

“Running for 200-300 metres, I can do that” very quickly, the police officer told Antena3 television, giving his name only as Sergio. And on collaring one of the crooks, Sergio could not resist telling him: “You've had a bit of bad luck, mate!”

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CRIME

Spain seizes 1.8 tonnes of Sinaloa Cartel’s crystal meth

Spanish police said Thursday they had seized 1,800 kilos of crystal meth that Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel was trying to sell in Europe, the country's "biggest-ever seizure" of the narcotic.

Published: 16 May 2024 17:07 CEST
Spain seizes 1.8 tonnes of Sinaloa Cartel's crystal meth

Police arrested five people during the raid in the eastern Alicante province, one of them a Mexican running the cartel’s Spanish operation, a statement said.

“This is the biggest-ever seizure of crystal meth in Spain and the second largest in Europe,” Antonio Martinez Duarte, head of the police’s drug trafficking and organised crime unit, told reporters.

“Among those arrested is a Mexican citizen linked to the Sinaloa Cartel,” he added.

READ ALSO: What are the penalties for drug possession in Spain?

He did not give his name but indicated the suspect was responsible for receiving the narcotics in Spain then distributing them within Europe.

The Sinaloa Cartel is one of Mexico’s oldest, largest and most violent criminal groups whose influence remains strong despite the arrest of its founder Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman and his son.

Both have been extradited to and jailed in the United States.

During the operation, police also detained three Spaniards and a Romanian, seizing five cars, documents, a weapon and cash.

But police believe it was a one-off trafficking operation and that “Mexican organisations are not permanently based” in Spain, Martinez Duarte said.

“These organisations send a trusted person who carries out the operation in line with their interests” and once that is over, he goes back home, he explained.

The seized narcotics had been due to be shipped to central Europe.

Although Spain is one of the main drug gateways to Europe, seizures of synthetic narcotics are uncommon as most traffickers usually deal in cannabis and cocaine.

READ ALSO: Why is Spain’s Europe’s cocaine gateway?

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