Spanish police finally get hold of slippery British robbery suspect

The National Police on Friday arrested a British fugitive in Calpe (Alicante) who is wanted for armed robbery back home.

Andrew Terence Moran, 32, was one of Britain’s most wanted criminals in Spain; following the 2005 robbery, he skipped the country and in November of last year he managed to flee from Spanish police after ramming his all-terrain vehicle into two patrol cars that were trying to detain him.

When a special police unit raided his home in Calpe last Friday, Moran once again tried to flee and had a violent face-off with the agents. A house search yielded two firearms, cartridges and several cellphones.

British authorities want Moran to stand trial for the 2005 assault against a Royal Mail vehicle containing the takings of a local supermarket; the attack was carried out by a gang wielding a revolver, a machete and a baseball bat. The criminals beat the security guard with the bat and took away one of the money bags, which contained 25,000 pounds (30,000 euros).

Andrew Terence Moran was arrested in 2007, and when he was brought before a judge two years later, the latter decreed preventive prison. Upon hearing the verdict, Moran attacked one of the security guards and ran out of the courtroom, evading police custody.

In November 2012, investigators from the National Police’s fugitive unit located the suspect in Los Alcázares (Murcia), but Moran once again slipped out of the agents’ fingers by driving his all-terrain into the patrol cars on his tail.