Planning and preparation: how it all began
A few days before the major crime in San Sebastián de los Reyes, a 40-year-old man named Mitescu bought a used Hyundai Santa Fe. The transaction was unusual: the payment was handed over not by him, but by another person. None of the sellers suspected that the buyer was a seasoned thief, wanted in several European countries and possessing five different identities.
On the evening of April 28, when a sudden blackout hit all of Spain, Mitescu left a temporarily rented apartment in Alcobendas and headed to the Plaza Norte 2 shopping mall. His backpack was filled with tools: an angle grinder, a screwdriver, a hammer, and ropes. He parked the car a few blocks away from his target to avoid drawing attention, then walked the rest of the way to the building.
Robbery in the chaos: inside the daring operation
Exactly how the criminal got onto the mall’s roof remains a mystery. However, surveillance cameras powered by backup generators captured his silhouette at the top of the building. He checked his phone, as if confirming his coordinates. Then he began drilling through the roof to enter exactly the right spot—directly above the José Luis jewelry store.
After breaking through the ceiling, the intruder entered the store. He carefully unscrewed the display cases, placing the jewelry in his backpack. In total, he managed to steal 2,200 pieces made of gold and precious stones. The loot was so heavy that security footage shows him struggling to carry it all. For his getaway, he built a makeshift ladder from the shop’s furniture, climbed up to the roof, and descended to the ground using a drainpipe. After 11:00 p.m., once power was restored to the city, street cameras lost track of him on one of the roads leading towards Alcobendas.
A high-stakes chase and unmasking
Police officers immediately realized they were dealing not with a common thief, but a true professional. A painstaking investigation began, lasting six months. After reviewing hundreds of hours of video footage, they noticed a vehicle matching the description of the suspect’s car. Tracking its route, they discovered that after the robbery, he left Spain through the La Junquera border checkpoint, and soon the car resurfaced in Romania.
At the same time, authorities were searching for the suspect himself, who, as it turned out, had been traveling across Europe under various identities and was wanted in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Greece. In Spain, the courts of Seville and Malaga were also looking for him in connection with similar crimes. Police waited for him to slip up. In October, he returned to the country under yet another new identity. He was arrested in Madrid while driving a new car. During questioning, the man tried to convince officers that he was just an ordinary Romanian truck driver, but certain details gave him away: during a search, police found a gold cross with the initials JL—just like those on the jewelry stolen from the shop. The rest of the valuables have yet to be recovered.
