Police Arrest Teen After Tenerife Casino Robbery Attempt
Police arrested an 18-year-old man in Santa Cruz de Tenerife early last Monday morning following an attempted gambling hall robbery that led to a police chase and extensive search.
Early last Monday morning, two young men tried to rob a gambling hall in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Police arrested one of them after chasing the car they were using in the attempted robbery. The car crashed, and the men ran away. Nearly 50 police officers from the local forces in La Laguna and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, along with national police, worked together to catch the suspect.
The arrested man is 18 years old and was born in Tenerife. He has Moroccan surnames.
That morning, the two men went to the Mini Kasino in the Yumbo shopping center, located on Avenida Príncipes de España in the Ofra District. One of them wore a black tracksuit with a hood and had his face covered. He was also carrying a large knife or machete. They approached the casino, but staff saw what was happening and quickly locked the doors, stopping the robbery. Witnesses said the men then fled in a "small white car."
A few minutes later, a La Laguna Local Police patrol in the El Cardonal area noticed a white rental car, a Seat Ibiza, driving suspiciously fast for the road and time of day. Police tried to pull the car over, but the driver sped up, heading from El Cardonal towards Carretera General del Rosario, then turning towards La Candelaria Hospital. Officers were now chasing the car with its two occupants and called for backup.
The driver tried to get onto the TF-5 Northern highway towards Santa Cruz de Tenerife at the Las Moraditas de Taco roundabout. However, he lost control at the roundabout, crashed into a landscaped area, and both men ran off. Police believe the driver left his mobile phone on a seat in the car.
Dozens of local and national police from Santa Cruz and La Laguna launched a thorough search through the streets of Las Moraditas de Taco and San Luis Gonzaga. They eventually found the young man, whose description matched that given by witnesses: young, thin, and wearing a black hooded tracksuit.
Officers from the different police forces then pieced together the events. Those who saw the car crash didn't know police were looking for two men involved in an attempted robbery in Ofra. Inside the rental car, police found tools often used in robberies, including a crowbar, a gardening saw, gloves, and a balaclava.
Alongside the nearly fifty officers, several commanders were also present in Las Moraditas, including a sub-inspector from La Laguna Local Police, officers from Santa Cruz Local Police, and an inspector from the National Police's La Laguna station.
The young man confessed to being involved in the attempted robbery at the Yumbo shopping center gambling hall. National Police are now investigating to identify the second person involved and to see if these individuals are linked to other similar crimes in the metropolitan area recently.
This comes after a violent robbery last Friday morning at a 24-hour store in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, near La Granja Park, at the junction of Avenida de Madrid and Calle Unamuno. In that incident, three attackers used a crowbar to threaten the single employee working there.