A man dubbed Tenerife’s most prolific thief has been ordered by a judge to stay away from a popular tourist location on the island.
Civil Guard officers spotted him acting suspiciously at a popular lookout spot in Masca which receives hundreds of visitors every day and managed to arrest him on an outstanding warrant, despite his attempts to evade them.
The 58-year-old from Los Realejos in the north of the island is said to have a staggering 280 offences to his name, the bulk of them for breaking into cars parked by tourists at beauty spots.
After arresting him for causing damage to a car and stealing items from it, officers took the unusual step of applying to a local court for an exclusion order based on his prolific offending. The request was granted immediately and means that he must stay out of Masca as of now.
The order will bring little comfort to past victims of the many thefts and has already attracted scepticism in some quarters as regards its likely effectiveness, given that the man was still free to roam beauty spots despite his horrendous criminal record.
However, whereas previously an actual offence was needed as the cause of arrest, the exclusion order means that merely being in Masca when banned will give police grounds to detain him for the breach.
