-Do you know what this is?
-Nope.
-Ah, you are very young.
It immediately clarifies the doubt:
-It's a mobile phone.
Grab the black mamotreto, which carries handle and antenna, and clarifies: «25 years ago this used a criminal organization when we all had fixed phones.Allowed them to talk to the band members while walking down the street.This technology was then unattainable for us.We said: Ah, let's see if it is going to be a mobile phone of those of the Americans!This was worth a million and pesetas, that is, the offender always advances more.
-Why?
(Gamero, who has been in this position for five years and 25 in the Judicial Police Unit, answers with releasing)
-Because they have the resources and because they do not have the legal limitations for their use.They use techniques to steal the car, for example.An Internet tutorial is seen, they buy the speech, make the car open, start up and do not skip the alarm.
-But that speech is easy to find?
-They have access to that technology.
-Then the arrival of the digital is an advance to clarify robberies but also a good ally to commit them?
-Digitization has always meant an advantage for the offender.Scams through the web, Internet purchases are impossible to track.
-They are planetary, let's.
-You have to forget the offender from here, that you know him, that you know his father, his brother, you know who he relates to...Today a criminal is mounted in a rental car in Cáceres, a plane is taken in Madrid, from there he goes to Las Palmas, then to Amsterdam, there leaves the jewels and returns to Spain so quiet.We can't do that research alone from here.We need the collaboration of colleagues not only nationwide but also international and that has to be agile, fast and you have to be able to invest money in it.If not, let's always go to tow.
-However, technology is an ally for the police.
-Nopes hemos incorporado a la transformación digital; se invierte en tecnología que se pone al uso de los profesionales, hacemos cursos de formación tanto a nivel de jefes de unidad como para policías de grupos especializados.But we always find the legal limitations of a State that is excessively guarantee for the countries of our environment, which limits us a lot the research possibilities.
-Are you of these ‘high -end robberies’ are organized bands?
-There are organized bands or groups.The organized group meets to commit a crime.Imagine, you, me and two more meet and remember stealing in a chaplain ship and we took the computers.Organized crime takes another step, is larger, more stable, with a lighter papers distribution where there are financing structures, money laundering, which are fundamental.
-Is it the case of the millionaire robbery of the 45 bottles of Atrio wine committed last October?
(Then on the table a paper with the slogan that comes from above and says: ‘Nothing at all, we continue investigating’.Gamero has many ‘sticky shots’ and before the order of his superiors reiterates).
-We are investigating and if tomorrow gives results, we will communicate it.
-But this has been the most striking theft of those investigated by this brigade?
(Then Gamero responds to the Galician)
-The most striking theft is the one that each victim suffers and we treat a robbery with great social impact as that of the person who has stolen his cyclomotor.We work with the same force and the same momentum the robbery on a large scale as the one that seems less, but that the affected does irreparable damage.
-Well, but striking it has been.
-Yes, flashy, yes.
(Y Gamero adelanta otros robos igualmente cuantiosos aunque menos mediáticos que el cometido, de momento con éxito, en el Relais&Chateaux).
-It had a short time a robbery in a public company in chaplains.They took material and vans.In Toledo we recover part of the material and the two vans.It was a blow of high amount and we managed to stop the author.
-They there is no perfect robbery.
-The perfect robbery is the one that is not clarified.And I think it exists.There is the same as the one that copy perfect on an exam, if they do not take it because it has been perfect.
(After laughing, Gamero sees it clear).
-The criminal always has the possibility of choosing the moment and the opportunity.We are servers of society and although we carry out prevention work, we work after the crime has been committed, even if prevention measures are taken.The author will take advantage of the best moment and the best conditions and a plan elaborated to carry it out.We work with time that one between the crime commission and the notification of the same, a time when many evidence can be lost.
(It's Wednesday and we are in the heart of the CSI of the Cáceres police station.While Gamero speaks the question seems obvious).
-What qualities should a policeman gather to get here?Insight, I suppose.
-The professional merits, their age and technical knowledge, which know of law, of computer science are valued...There is a profile related to intellectual, volitional abilities, a demand and a personal and family time sacrifice.
-No schedule or date on the calendar, go.
-Nopesotros no trabajamos con horario sino a demanda de la investigación que tenemos que llevar a cabo.If you have to work at four in the morning on a Saturday, you work.And if instead of entering at seven in the morning we have to enter at 10.00 and leave at eleven o'clock at night, we do it.
-Is there a lot of fiction in the cinema about work at a police station?
-The cinema always gives a distorted vision.Obviously this is an attractive unit for any police because everyone likes to be a researcher and allows youthe one that acted in stores...
(Yes, in the unit it is not disconnected.Sometimes Gamero and yours are an entire day investigating.Then, at home, at four in the morning the ‘click’ arrives that tells you that you have to change the course of the investigation.It is a non -stop).
-But, what is investigated in Cáceres?
-This unit is dedicated to all crimes related to heritage: robberies, thefts, scams, undue appropriations, housing occupations...The most common in Cáceres are the small thefts in commercial establishments, in leisure premises and then robberies with force, either in homes or in public establishments.They are added to the robberies on a smaller scale in vehicles (people who leave the car open, or who open them, or merchandise distributors against those who act the cacos taking advantage of a mistake).Robberies with force or robberies with violence fortunately we do not have many and when there have been robberies with violence we have managed to arrest the authors and enter them in prison.
(Gamero tells him satisfied and speaks of one of the last cases, starring two children who accumulated eight robberies with violence and are already in a reintegration center).
-Then there are the subtractions inside vehicles, the fracture of mirrors, crystals, punctured wheels...They are little entity thefts that in these cases respond more to hooliganism than professional crime.Of course, to commit robberies there is no established schedule, although it is true that those of addresses are carried out during daytime and those of commercial establishments are usually at night or holidays when workers or owners are not inside.
-The luck in Cáceres we have few crimes of entity.
(Gamero Asevera relieved and then data pull).
-In 2019 there were 2.047 crimes against heritage in Extremadura and since 2017 we see a gradual decline (2.417 that year), 2.251 In 2018, the 2.047 of 2019 and 1.500 of 2020.
-How many have the unit?
(It is another question that has no answer to the mouth of Gamero).
-For security measures that information is not provided.
-And how is a thief hunt?There are many techniques.One of them, those of a lifetime: the fingerprint.
-It is a resource that we have, with the support of the Scientific Police, specialized in this type of vestiges collection.What they do is analyze through a footprint or a fragment of it that the author has left on the stage of the crime and compare it with the database (called Said), where the traces of people who havecommitted crimes.These traces are collated through a computer application, they give us a series of candidates, and the scientific police is the one that determines among that series of candidates what the author is.
-What is your success percentage?
-The fingerprint what tells you is the presence of a person on the stage of crime, but does not mean that it is the author.A fingerprint may appear in my office and it does not mean that you have stolen me, it means that you were here.When it is already an indicial or probative element it is when you have never been here and a footprint appears in the office.If you have sufficient quality it is total, because the traces are unique and impossible to falsify.
-Then is the DNA...
-It's equally valid than the footprint but maybe he leaves more vestiges.DNA is the genetic load we carry and each one has theirs.We can leave it on the crime stage: hair, skin, sweat...Such substances are analyzed in a laboratory and marks what person has been in that place.From that brand the checks are made, either by a robbery, for a disappearance, for a corpse that appears and we do not know who corresponds.We do it through the genetic profiles of family members or relatives or their own cleaning clothes at home.That is not done here but in some laboratories that the police have.What those of the Cáceres scientist do is collect the vestige, protect it, take it to a chain of custody so that the test does not distort and send it to a laboratory.There it is analyzed if it has sufficient quality and if it is a crime of a certain entity.
(Gamero is an expert in the field.After the photo shoot for this newspaper is quieter.He was at the Central in Barcelona.There were hard bones to gnaw.It shows.Answer self -insurance).
-Signing with this CSI, what role do witnesses have?
-The role of face-to-face witnesses-he says-it is essential if they provide us with quality information, if the witness is able to observe details that have identification value, a tuition, the type of car, the color, the brand...data that offer clear characteristics of the author, or a video or photography, as with many citizens who suddenly see a crime and do not hesitate to film it.
-We are in the digital era.Are video recordings another strut for this unit?
-They are fundamental.Through the images we can try to recognize the authors of this criminal act, send it to other colleagues nationally and internationally so that they can identify them.Recordings problem?That today there is still the culture of implementing our own security systems, that is, individuals, but above all companies;They do not invest in technology, which is also not face.
-Oh, isn't it face?
-There's any person per 100 or 150 euros has more than protected their home.There are those that put measures but with products that are not of quality.Or we always hope that the place or commerce on the side is contributed by the images because it has a camera.If we all had that social conscience, it would be very important for the resolution of many crimes.
(The conversation comes to an end.It is time to ask Gamero what is the case that has moved the most).
-The two hooded years ago they entered the home of some older gentlemen, they were stuck and even hit them and the man who took care of them.They robbed them a lot of jewels.We managed to stop one of the authors.See the weakness of those victims, how they had suffered, in addition someone who had worked at home participated in the events...We returned the peace of mind to be able to return home and give them those jewels that were from their parents...Tell that woman over 80 years old, who could barely move: "There she has her mother's jewels," he reached the soul.
Times change just like the methods for stealing.There were times in which day, a day too, some business from Cácereño was a victim of the moon -landing, a technique that consists of entering a place through force.Now the digitalization is imposed, but thieves existed and will continue to exist, as there is perfect robbery and also the imperfect.That is why Gamero's investigation and his still open.