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Date Published: 28/06/2022
ARCHIVED - Greengrocer, 63, arrested after robbing 7 banks in Murcia and Alicante and escaping from jail
The thief used a 'Dirty Harry' style gun to carry out the robberies which netted him more than 350,000 euros
They say that fact is often stranger than fiction, and the extraordinary arrest of a seemingly ordinary 63-year-old greengrocer this week could be a scene from an old detective movie.
The shopkeeper, named only as Pedro, was arrested five years ago for robbing seven banks across the Region of Murcia and neighbouring Alicante. He became infamous for using the same revolver sported by Clint Eastwood in the ‘Dirty Harry’ films and after escaping from jail, spent four years evading capture, outwitting law enforcement at every turn.
Incredibly, through a series of disguises, he was able to continue running his greengrocer business in the Alicante town of Hondón de los Frailes, where he was eventually nabbed over the weekend.
The suspect was finally tracked down and has been put behind bars, along with two accomplices accused of helping him to hide in the Vega Alta de Segura region.
Pedro was best known for carrying a Smith & Weston 357 Magnum revolver, a gun with an unusually long barrel. Although he never fired a shot in his bank robberies, he tied up employees using cable ties on three separate occasions.
Police estimate his overall loot to be more than 350,000 euros.
When he was first arrested back in May 2017 along with his partner, Pedro was carrying no less than 48,000 euros on his person, which he had stolen from a bank in Orihuela just 48 hours before. His rap sheet includes robberies in the Murcian towns of El Raal and El Siscar in Santomera and the Alicante towns of Granja de Rocamora, Raiguero de Bonanza, Monforte del Cid and Sax.
According to the Guardia Civil, Pedro, whose father was also a thief and a greengrocer, wore prescription glasses with very thick lenses. When robbing a bank he simply took the glasses off, and without them investigators claim “he seemed like a completely different person.”
In addition, during the robberies, he was impeccably dressed and well-groomed, while customers of his shop described him as dishevelled and untidy in his everyday life.
Image: Archive
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