VIDEO: Man arrested for stealing 55 catalytic converters from cars in the Canary Islands

The Guardia Civil in Gran Canaria have arrested a 34-year-old man in for committing 55 robberies in which he stole the catalytic converters and vehicle papers from cars so that he could ‘legally’ take them to a recycling plant and sell them.

Operation VIRAL began after police received a noticeable increase in complaints between October 2021 and January 2022, stating that they had had the catalytic converter stolen from their cars, and realised that it was from certain makes and models of cars.

Investigators found the criminal activity did not stop there, but that in most cases their documentation was also stolen from inside the vehicle, but not all as similar makes and models were targeted so that the thief had papers to justify some of them already.

The Guardia Civil were able to find sufficient evidence that pointed to the same person being behind all of the crimes, and studied the cases that had taken place in the municipalities of Santa Lucía de Tirajana, Agüimes, and Ingenio, to determine his identity and to prove his participation in each of them.

The investigation led the police to the location of a metal recycling company, in the municipality of Agüimes, where most of the stolen catalysts were being sold, the seller justifying their legal origin by providing technical inspection cards that had previously been stolen, which gave them a name.

After carrying out a series of different surveillance operations, agents were able to identify the man behind the robberies and confirm that he was hiding inside a house in Doctoral, a suburb of Las Palmas, which is why on the Wednesday morning (March 30^th), as you can see in the video, the police entered the building to arrest him.

During the search of the property, they found numerous documents, electronic devices, mobile phones, and other objects related to the investigation, all of them, apparently, of illegal origin, used in the 55 robberies.

The man has been charged by the police and is now at the disposal of the corresponding Court of Instruction of San Bartolomé de Tirajana for trial and sentencing.