The Civil Guard in Seville have dismantled a criminal group dedicated to robbing citrus fruits from agricultural operations in the Vega del Guadalquivir.
The operation began at the beginning of September of last year, coinciding with the start of the citrus season when authorities detected a series of robberies committed on agricultural holdings in the Sevillian towns of Alcala del Rio, La Rinconada, and Burguillos. Agents of the Roca Team of the Civil Guard of La Rinconada discovered that all the robberies had been committed by a single group of people, residents of the Sevillian neighborhoods of Pino Montano and Los Pajaritos, who had multiple criminal records for theft of citrus fruits.
The perpetrators of the robberies were arrested in April after robbing 1,000 kilograms of oranges from an agricultural farm in Burguillos. The oranges were returned to their rightful owner, who also filed a complaint about the serious damage caused to the trees and to the farm's perimeter fence by this criminal group.
The authorities that intercepted the criminal's vehicle saw that the criminals were transporting a child under the age of 9 on the stolen oranges without using any child restraint system.
Nearly 11,000 kilos of fruit were stolen during the campaign, 4,200 kilos of which were recovered by authorities in different actions. In addition, they had up to 50 complaints about infringing different towns' perimeter closures and curfews during the State of Alarm.
Source: agrodigital.com