Spain’s most wanted man caught in Portugal

“EL SOLITARIO” (The Loner), a Spanish bank robber and murderer whom Spanish police had been trying to catch for more than 13 years and considered as “very dangerous”, has been arrested in Portugal and will stay in jail here at least until

Portuguese courts schedule his trial.

The man was arrested on Tuesday (July 24) and appeared in court the day after, under strong security measures. When he left the court house, escorted by several Polícia Judiciária agents, he turned to the curious crowd waiting to see the famous robber and just waved a “Hello everybody”.

Investigation

Jaime Giménez Arbe, 51-years-old, was preparing another bank attack, this time in a branch of Caixa de crédito Agrícola bank located in Figueira da Foz, a coastal city in the centre of Portugal, when he was caught.

In an official statement, Polícia Judiciária explained that the arrest happened after a long and intense joint investigation by the two Iberian police forces, who were already on this case for a long period of time.

‘The Loner’ is a prime suspect in 36 bank robberies in Spain and accused of the death of three Spanish police agents while trying to escape them. The accusations also include several crimes of threatening people with firearms.

Giménez’ official address was in Las Rozas, a village near Madrid where he shared three apartments with two sons. However, police have said that he seemed to be expanding his criminal activities to Portugal, this robbery attempt being the first of his crimes to come to the attention of the Portuguese Police.

The nickname of ‘The Loner’ is due to the fact that he always acted alone in all of his bank robberies.

It was said that Giménez usually chose his targets very carefully and spent some time studying the security failures. With that information, he could predict the time he would need to act and escape.

Disguise

Giménez always used a disguise to hide his natural looks on his attacks and, this time, it was no different. At the time of his arrest, “the suspect was wearing fake hair, beard and moustache. He was using a bullet-proof jacket and carried two automatic 45mm guns,” said the PJ’s report. “The guns were ready to shoot and complemented with extra ammunition.”

The Coimbra department of the Polícia Judiciária was already waiting for him near the Caixa de Crédito Agrícola bank when ‘The Loner’ left the boarding house where he was staying to prepare for the Portuguese robbery.

It was said that the man left the boarding house at 1pm and drove a white van in the main avenue that would lead him to the branch of Caixa Agrícola bank. A few metres from the bank, five cars surrounded the van and armed police agents from the PJ arrested Giménez who did not resist.

The van was apprehended as well as its contents, including several fake Portuguese and Spanish number plates.