According to police, the group has previously committed similar crimes in Sweden.
Police solved a wide range of construction site thefts in Usima. The perpetrators are suspected to be a foreign criminal group.
Police suspect that the group committed thefts in the Ushima area from September 2022 to January of the current year. The offenses in the cases are theft, aggravated theft and attempted theft. The suspected crimes were committed in groups of three to five separate people.
According to our information, 30-40 people are involved in the criminal group. Crime Commissioner Mika Allen said in a police release that the group had committed similar crimes in Sweden before.
Suspected crimes in the Ushima area have been committed mainly at night. They have targeted storage containers where the equipment was stored. An angle grinder was used to break inside, which was used to cut the locking latch of the container or the shackle of the lock. In some cases, a hole was made in the wall of the container.
The police have arrested two suspected criminals.
One of them has been involved in all the trips of the criminal group to Finland. He is suspected of over 30 construction site burglaries. On the other hand, one of the suspects had only participated in the trip made in January 2023. He is suspected of over 20 construction site burglaries.
– The trips went well for a week, and the purpose of the trips was only to commit crimes, Allanon says.
The crime complex has been investigated by the Police Departments of Helsinki and Western and Eastern Uusimaa. There was also co-operation with the Estonian authorities in the early stages of the investigation.
– Partners from Estonia played a key role in the fact that we were able to recover the stolen property and return it to the respective owners, says Criminal Commissioner Allanen.
A van was stopped in Tallinn on 13 January at the request of Helsinki police. 1,900 pieces of equipment were found in the car, which were suspected to have been stolen from Finland. The total value of the equipment was around 600,000 Euros.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the equipment in question had been stolen from construction sites in southern Finland between the 4th and the 13th. The tools were returned to Finnish police from Estonia in mid-January, and around 1,800 of them have been linked to a theft at a specific construction site and returned to their respective owners.
The criminal complex went to the prosecution on Monday, 15 May. The indictment deadline is June 8.
Also, five people have been imprisoned on suspicion of theft at a construction site in another facility investigated in collaboration with the police departments of West and East Ushima.
Welding equipment and power tools were stolen overnight from construction sites located in Usima. Equipment was usually taken by breaking the locks on storage containers at construction sites.
The police followed on the 26th and 27th. In February, five people who were suspected of involvement in the theft reported to the police. On 26 February, he was seen visiting a van with foreign license plates in the parking lot of Merituul Shopping Center in Espoo.
The five were stopped on 27 February while they were in a car on their way to a foreign country via Lancistama.
15 different pieces of stolen property were found in a van abandoned in the Merituuli parking lot. The embezzlement took place between 20th and 27th. mid february
More than 300 different work machines were stored in the van, with a total value of around 100,000 Euros. Around 200 working machines have been successfully returned to their owners.
Preliminary investigations have shown that four people belonging to the group came to Finland on 18 February in a van used as a hiding place for stolen property.
The Helsinki District Court imprisoned the five on 3 March on suspicion of theft. Preliminary investigation is almost complete and charges should be filed by June 21.
