A Romanian couple were arrested on Wednesday by the National Police as part of an investigation into the theft of luxury watches. The arrests followed the detention of a woman of similar age (26) in December, who had used violence in stealing a watch.
The police say that the value of watches stolen in Majorca over the past five months is 225,000 euros. A gang based in Barcelona had been coming to the island for brief periods and committing robberies before returning. The police are unsure how many people there are in the gang. The two people arrested this week were directly responsible for five robberies.
The typical method, always by a woman, was to approach a victim - male of advanced years - on the pretext of asking for directions and to apply an "amorous embrace". The woman would remove the watch, sometimes using violence, and run off to a waiting car.