Police smash suspected stolen car ring

The National Police have smashed yet another crime syndicate which was trading stolen luxury cars in Majorca. Police have arrested three Spanish employees of a Playa de Palma car dealership which specialised in the buying and selling of imported luxury cars and five top of the range vehicles have also been seized. According to police sources, initial inspections of the five cars have revealed that each of the vehicles has had its documentation tampered with. The arrests have come as a result of a police operation launched in March on the back of the arrest of five Germans earlier this year on charges of extortion and fraud, but the investigation was never really closed. Over the past few months fraud squad officers have been working on the assumption that a small criminal organisation based in the Playa de Palma area has been buying and selling stolen luxury cars. Since this latest operation was launched, undercover police have had a number of locations in the Playa de Palma under around-the-clock surveillance and on May 7, one of the plain clothes police units watched as the foreign number plates of a luxury Mercedes were swapped for Spanish plates. The police moved in immediately and managed to confirm, with the co-operation of Interpol, that the registration number of the vehicle corresponded to a Mercedes stolen in Germany. The police raid, the first phase of the latest operation, also led to the discovery of a Volkswagen Golf and a Rover, both of which the police have strong suspicions have been stolen and smuggled in to Majorca. Police searched the premises and also recovered nine sets of number plates and nearly 90'000 pesetas in cash.