Once done from the inside: the mysterious theft of Núria's safe solved
Police have accused a hotel cook and waiter of committing five burglaries and are still searching for two other people.
BarcelonaIt begins to resolve the mysterious robbery in the Núria ValleyOn February 9th, four masked individuals forced their way into the ski resort and attempted to steal cash from the tills. They targeted a safe weighing over 100 kilograms, which they hauled away on a sled along the rack railway tracks. So far, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) have arrested two of the suspects: two men, aged 28 and 52, who worked at the Núria hotel. One was a cook and the other a waiter. Both were sleeping at the hotel and allegedly took advantage of the darkness and silence to commit the robbery with two other people. Security camera footage shows two more masked individuals whose identities are currently unknown to the Mossos. The arrested men are not believed to be from the Ripollès region, but had traveled to Núria specifically for work. The Mossos arrested them this Wednesday at the resort, where they were still working.
In fact, according to ARA, security cameras were key to catching the alleged thieves. An important detail is that the cook walks with a limp, and the cameras showed one of the masked men walking the same way. The cook had been working at the hotel longer, but the waiter had only started three days before the robbery. He shared a room with another employee who couldn't verify that he was there all night. This employee's explanation is also surprising: he said he has foot problems and that his feet often smell bad, so he sleeps in a different room.
In any case, in the early hours of the morning, the four masked men broke into five rooms of the sanctuary's hotel complex. First, the thieves entered the reception area and an administration office by forcing the lock on the door. The target was the safe, which weighed over 100 kilos, and they put a plan into action to open it. They placed a baby mattress under the safe and managed to drag it to the emergency exit. Once outside, they left the mattress and placed the safe on a snow sled. This was the transport they used to reach the rack railway tracks at night, with the entire landscape covered in snow. It's worth remembering that the Núria Valley can only be reached by train, aboard the rack railway.
In fact, the thieves managed to travel 500 meters along the railway tracks and ended up throwing the sled and the safe off the tracks, leaving it open. A question lingered in the police investigation: whether the safe had opened due to the impact of the fall or if the thieves had managed to open it themselves. Ultimately, the police concluded that they forced it open with an angle grinder and a pickaxe. Why did they go all the way to the rack railway tracks? To avoid making noise with the angle grinder and waking the hotel guests.
Inside the cash register, however, they found a meager haul: 150 euros in cash. In fact, everything points to the fact that while two thieves dealt with the register, the other two continued robbing inside the hotel. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) know this because on the path to the rack railway, only two different people's fingerprints were found.
No luck
Inside the hotel, the thieves forced other doors, stealing items such as a jacket. They also reached the hotel's cash registers, but found no money. They tried again with the cash registers in one of the hotel's cafes, but these too were empty. One of the other thefts occurred in the area dedicated to organizing recreational activities for children and their families. The perpetrators forced open a door and, once inside, took a large sled and a jacket. The final, fifth theft took place in the snow sled rental shop. There, the thieves managed to steal 200 euros from a cash register and approximately 1,000 euros in cash from an envelope. In total, the loot amounted to less than 1,500 euros. The investigation has determined that up to four people were involved in the robberies. They were intimately familiar with the premises, following a logical and calculated route from the first room to the last, their primary target being the safe. The detainees, one of whom—the cook—has a prior criminal record, will appear before the duty judge in Ripoll this Thursday.
