GRAN CANARIA – In the middle of March, the Guardia Civil in Gran Canaria, conducted investigations against a 32-year-old man with a police record. It was alleged he was the perpetrator of ten theft crimes committed against tourists using the technique known as “Ronaldinho”. Using this method, the thief managed to appropriate the wallets and mobile phones of the tourists he approached.
Since last November 2022, there have been numerous complaints at the Puerto Rico-Mogán police station. In all cases, it involved tourists that had been approached by a man in the vicinity of a shopping centre in the town. The man posed as a PR and gave them publicity information for different restaurants.
Once the victim’s trust had been gained, he would approach and insert his leg between the victim’s, beginning to hit him lightly to unbalance him and, taking advantage of the fact that he was holding him so that he would not fall, quickly frisked him and proceeded to steal his valuables, after which he ran off.
“Ronaldinho” technique
This type of criminal technique, known in police slang as “Ronaldinho”. However, as this was not very frequent in the police demarcation of this unit, there were no suspects. Consequently, this made it extremely difficult for the police to identify the alleged perpetrator.
For all these reasons, the Guardia Civil began an investigation based on the analysis of the behaviour. They defined the places and times most frequented by the alleged perpetrator and were able to obtain images that identified him when he used a card stolen from one of the victims minutes before. They then proceeded to establish different static surveillance points to proceed to their location.
Arrested
These surveillances resulted in the location of the alleged perpetrator on March 12. During this, the police observed how he arrived at one of the places where he performed and began to interact with a couple of tourists. Immediately, the Guardia set up a situation with the aim of preventing his escape. Consequently, he was intercepted in the vicinity of one of the Puerto Rico shopping centres.
Once identified, the police proceeded to investigate him and obtained evidence that allowed the clarification of ten crimes of theft. This has been forwarded to the competent Investigating Courts of San Bartolomé de Tirajana.
