Police in the Netherlands have arrested five members of a notorious Romanian gang involved in Theft from Moving Vehicle crimes following an early morning raid on a holiday park in Otterlo, a village in the province of Gelderland. The arrests follow a two-year investigation by Dutch law enforcement.

According to reports, the gang may have been involved in as many as 17 attacks on moving trucks in Europe, including five in the Netherlands. In September 2016, the threat of such attacks on trucks was raised with the Infrastructure Service department of the National Unit of the Dutch Police by the industry group Transport and Logistics Netherlands (TLN). It transpired that police were already conducting their own secret investigation, operation ‘Pinson’, into the activities of the Romanian gang.

The raid that led to the arrests followed an attack on a truck carrying Phones on a quiet section of the A73 between Venray and Venlo. Alerted by an alarm going off in his cab, the driver stopped his vehicle to investigate, only to discover the back door of the truck had been forced open and a large part of the cargo was missing. Reports say nearly 1,000 phones were taken by the offenders with a value of almost €500,000.

It is believed police were able to locate the gang at the holiday park after what one police official called a ‘not smart’ phone call to Romania. Prior to the raid, plain clothed police officers in the park closely observed the activities of the gang for several days and were able to identify that the van in front of the holiday cabin was full of boxes.

The 04.30hrs police raid clearly caught the gang by surprise and led to all five Romanians being detained. Outside the premises in a white Hyundai SUV with a German license plate, police officers recovered boxes of Phones as well as the axle grinder the gang used to cut through the rear door locks of trucks. The roof of the SUV had also been modified to facilitate the gang’s activities, which involved driving the vehicle close to the back doors of a truck, climbing out through the SUV’s roof in order to cut through the moving truck’s read door locks and then passing products from the vehicle back to accomplices in the SUV.

Source: TAPA Asia Pacific