Felix, alias The Skinnyblack balaclava and purple neck gaiter, dominates the scene. He moves calmly. You know that the safe has a waiting period and that it will not arrive and load. Keep calm. It is noon on Friday, January 16, in a bank branch in Cáceres. Draw the blinds to make it look like they have already closed. He tells the office manager not to enter the password more than three times, because it gets locked. In the face of calm, there is strength. Juan Carlos, wearing a green hat, hits a bank employee on the head with a gun and tells him to lower his eyes and stay still. When the box opens, they start putting the money in the backpack. The loot is succulent, but they also want the cashier’s money. In total, El Flaco and Juan Carlos take more than 154,000 euros from an office of the Caja Rural de Extremadura. Since they can’t fit all the money in the backpack they brought, they put the rest in a briefcase at the bank office.
“Robberies are an increasingly less frequent crime and when they are committed, the same pattern always tends to repeat itself: robbers with a lot of experience, very veterans and who have committed it more times,” explained this Tuesday the Police inspector in charge of the investigation at the Canillas Police Complex, in Madrid. This was the case of Félix, 55, and Juan Carlos, 58, two “historic robbers” from Madrid who returned to their old ways when they had just been released from prison a few weeks ago. The Police arrested both for this robbery on February 12 and do not rule out that there may be “a third party involved.”
Felix and Juan Carlos did everything possible to leave no trace during the coup. They had their heads and faces covered with hats, masks and neck clothing to hide their identity and they also wore taped gloves so that they would not slip and leave fingerprints. It’s what agents call a “culture of suppression of evidence.”
His experience was also noticeable in the preparation and in the escape. Three days before they traveled to Cáceres in a van dressed as if they were workers. There they were doing “studies” or “preliminary surveillance” and they even carried a mattress inside the car, so as not to have to check into a hotel or attract attention, explains the researcher. Once they had the money in their possession, they tied up the employees with zip ties, took away their phones, and left them locked in the bathroom. Before running away, they threatened them to stay still for at least 20 minutes.
Investigators believe that Félix and Juan Carlos may have met in prison. Both have a long history of serving sentences in penitentiary centers, 35 and 37 years respectively. Félix, who earned the nickname for his tall and lanky appearance, was known at the beginning of his criminal career for fleeing violence and for gestures of generosity, such as handing out a wad of bills to bank employees shortly before leaving with the loot. He once tried to escape from prison by hiding in a bag of dirty clothes, but was later arrested. Juan Carlos, who played the role of “strong man” in the Cáceres robbery, has several brothers with a history of robberies. In addition to having served time for several robberies, he was convicted of murder.
Three days after the robbery at the Caja Rural, Félix was detained at a Madrid Local Police checkpoint. He had a gun “some plastic masks” in the car. No one then linked him to the robbery, but since he was in the third degree, a semi-freedom prison regime, it was revoked, and he had to return to prison, say sources familiar with the case.
As part of their investigation, they searched four homes in Madrid, Arroyomolinos, Fuenlabrada and Toledo. There they found material that links them to the coup and 2.400 euros in 10-euro bills. “It could be from the cashier,” says the researcher. They know that in the few days after the robbery, Juan Carlos bought a car, but the rest of the money remains unknown.
