The inspector responsible for the arrest discusses the latest clues with the police officers, who will enter the house where the experienced criminal is staying in the morning. One of those who live fast, accumulate dozens of hits and are used to operating on the fringes of society. This is José Luis Bote Vargas, the last member of a clan of lunar landers with outstanding accounts with the free law. “In other arrests, he has already tried to flee via the inner courtyard, this area must first be secured so that he cannot get there,” he reminds her. Those words will be a premonition of what would happen minutes later, as the fugitive is arrested just as he is attempting to exit through the window overlooking the common area of the apartment block. A Vargas boat has just sunk, a member of a clan in which the four brothers have arrested more than 300, according to the National Police.
The Aluniceros are a distinct species within the criminal world. They work on the adrenaline released in the seconds their punches last. They slam a stolen car into the window, break into the store, grab everything they can and flee at full throttle. Any failure is deadly, looting must be done with butterfly flight. This is the world where Jose Luis Bote Vargas grew up if we look at his police and judicial history. These led to him living in isolation for five years in a house in Leganés (Madrid) where he had lived in the past. “This arrest is part of an open operation to apprehend all those wanted for violent robbery. We call it Operation Nitro,” explains the leader of the group that carried out the arrest. Nitroglycerin, an explosive component, is the life of these criminals.
The investigation to find Messenger Vargas began at his children’s school. The officers conducted surveillance to find out which house they went to every day after class and found that the refugee’s wife also lived there. After being stationed for hours, days and weeks near the ground floor on Calle Monegros in Leganés, they managed to glimpse the target framed by a door. He would sometimes ask his sons to keep an eye out for suspects while he smoked at the door. With this information, the investigators of the refugee group obtained court permission to enter the house. And they found it was there. Coincidentally, just a few days later, another of his brothers was arrested, albeit for a crime unrelated to robbery.
The Vargas messengers represent one of the historical families in the world of Aluniceros and Butroneros. When they are still teenagers, whoever shows skill starts participating in robberies. “Each member of the organization has their role. There’s the driver who gets in to take as much stuff as possible in the shortest amount of time, the one who’s in charge of gathering information about the place he’s planning to rob… And depending on how he gets into the Shops invade, they also need an expert on a thermal lance — a tool that can melt steel — or locks…” explains a police source.
It was in the early 2000s that jewelry stores in the Salmanca neighborhood saw numerous robberies using the moon landing technique. In no time, the loot was worth the risk. “Later on, these companies started taking tighter security measures and the primary targets started being cell phone shops or bars,” says the head of the group that arrested Bote Vargas. Attacks on trucks also increased during these years. Another famous criminal specializing in this technique is Niño Saez, who was shot dead in Madrid in 2017 at the age of 36, the same age when José Luis Bote Vargas was last arrested.
This fugitive learned everything he knew from his older brothers, as did many other experienced aluniceros and butroneros. His brother David was last arrested in 2017 for running an organization blamed for 30 robberies. Their targets were primarily mobile phone providers, betting shops, tobacconists, bars and restaurants. Two years earlier, after a failed attempt to rob a bar in Carabanchel, Félix, the eldest, had fallen and escaped in a powerful car. The coup did not go well and they were spotted by a police patrol. In a violent chase that saw Félix’s gang destroy two police cars, they were eventually forced to get out of their vehicle and flee on foot. But by then they were surrounded by agents and arrested.
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David Bote Vargas, older brother of the imprisoned Alunicero.
An old photo of David, one of the brothers who was already in prison, shows a barely of age boy facing the camera as if he’d lived too much in a short amount of time. It seems to have been taken from a Quinqui film by Eloy de la Iglesia, but this is a real saga. The available image by José Luis shows a man in a white T-shirt handcuffed on his bed. His children were also in the house.
“You don’t teach them business, do you?” – a police officer asked him at the moment when he was being handcuffed.
“No, no, officer. They are good boys, they do very well in school.
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