The National Police have arrested a member of the famous international band Gang The Pink Panther (The Pink Panther gang), dedicated to stealing luxury jewelers. This criminal organization is pursued in over 20 countries, and has seized more than € 140 million through more than 120 robberies worldwide.
The detainee is Borko Ilincic, a Serb and 33 years, says the police inspector of this research, is a polite, serious, healthy and polyglot man speaks Serbian, Italian, Russian, German and a little Spanish. " Your profile does not fit the majority of offenders," he explains.
Ilincic has been arrested in the Madrid suburb of Alcala de Henares on Tuesday 11 February. According to the Serbian himself, he was on holiday in Spain since last Sunday. Police, however, believe that he was preparing " one of theirs ". It is usual, in the modus operandi of the band, go to the jewelry have targeted before the robbery, to discuss the procedure. The detainee was traveling with another Serb, however, this does not have incriminating evidence, so it has not been arrested. Ilincic is one of those who participated in the 2007 robbery in a shopping mall in Dubai. On that occasion stole jewelry valued at tens of three million euros. It has been one of the most famous robberies in history. The detainee has a pending life sentence in the United Arab Emirates.
The band has made ​​thefts around the world, from countries like Bahrain, to the United States, passing through Spain, Cyprus, and Japan. "It is a criminal organization with absolute mobility," says the inspector. Although most visited continent Pink Panther is Europe and particularly central Europe, Austria, Switzerland and Germany.
Spanish researchers from the Specialist Crime Unit and Violent (UDEV) and the Provincial Brigade of the Judicial Police Sevilla established a monitoring device that allowed the detention of Borko Ilincic. The fugitive, who was carrying a Bosnian passport under a false name, was arrested while driving a rental car after leaving a hotel. Police shuffled two possibilities: either stop or continue surveillance for its true intention in Spain. In the end, they have chosen the first option to avoid the risk of leakage, or any hurt or killed if they left the course would be carried out robbery.
The name of the band, The Pink Panther Gang, refers to the film The Pink Panther, 1963 that chronicles the theft of a large diamond. The name reflects the fact that after a robbery in London in 2009, one of the diamond rings that are seized, valued at one million euros, was found during a search of an apartment in a pot of face cream, the same happens in the film directed by Blake Edwards.
After being known for several major jewelry heists worldwide, Interpol created a specific team, The Pink Panther Project. The name of the gang welcomed him with affection and sometimes posters have left or Teddies Pink Panther at the site of the robbery. Every year each country UDEV meets to report developments in the investigations that have been conducted, and each government has no notion of criminals being sought. "It was thanks to this international cooperation to detect Ilincic was in Spain," said the inspector Spanish.
The criminal organization is of Balkan origin. After the Balkan War of 1913, various paramilitary groups found no job and began moving into drug trafficking and robberies fancy jewelry. Are formal, disciplined and educated, were military. Since then, the inspector explains UDEV, began to get a sense of the band. Triggers, however, were those of Dubai and London, 2007 and 2009 respectively theft. Now. estimated 200 people involved, although its structure is unconventional. La Pantera Rosa works in cells and acts for and in its own initiative.
The detainee is not old litter with military training. The police believes that the new generation is formed from members of the initiators learning. His modus operandi, however, remains the same: fast and wounded. They do not last more than five minutes into the jewelers, carrying automatic weapons, but never used, used false documents to move from one country to another and study all the details of your target. The Pink Panther, is classified as a dangerous band, even without blood on their hands. It is an organization that already has many millions of euros stolen, which operates around the world and you never know when they could shoot some of their weapons.
Tags: eleven, oceans, Panther, pink, struck, thefts