A BURGLARY gang had an unhappy ending when they tried to tunnel into a jewellery shop from a neighbouring massage parlour.
Two of the three Romanian thieves were caught by cops as they desperately tried to escape from the scene.
The third was arrested later that day at Stansted Airport as he attempted to flee the country.
The culprits Ioan Asafeti, 39, Laurentiu-Daniel Nitisoara, 38, and Sergiu Plastin, 42, have now all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary and criminal damage at Kingston Crown Court.
A BURGLARY gang had an unhappy ending when they tried to tunnel into a jewellery shop from a neighbouring massage parlour.
Two of the three Romanian thieves were caught by cops as they desperately tried to escape from the scene.
The third was arrested later that day at Stansted Airport as he attempted to flee the country.
The culprits Ioan Asafeti, 39, Laurentiu-Daniel Nitisoara, 38, and Sergiu Plastin, 42, have now all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary and criminal damage at Kingston Crown Court.
The Met’s Flying Squad linked the gang to a string of burglaries in which more than £700,000 worth of property was stolen.
The crooks used similar tunnelling techniques to break into jewellery shops across London.
Their downfall came last month when they tried to bore their way into a jeweller’s through a wall.
They had broken into a neighbouring Thai massage parlour in Mitcham Road, Mitcham, South West London.
Cops were called to reports of a break-in just after 3am on Friday, July 17.
Officers quickly caught Nitisoara in a nearby alleyway as he tried to get away.
A search of the area then led cops to Asafeti, who was found hiding on a rooftop.
Officers later searched the massage parlour the pair had broken into.
There, officers uncovered the gang’s audacious plan to tunnel through the wall and into the neighbouring jewellery shop.
A Met Police spokesperson said: “Officers then searched a massage parlour the pair had broken into and uncovered their plan to tunnel through a wall into the neighbouring jewellery shop.
“They also found bags of tools and equipment used to dig the hole.”
The third gang member, Plastin, was arrested later that day at Stansted Airport.
He had been attempting to flee to Ireland when cops caught up with him.
Detectives from the Flying Squad then linked the trio to several other burglaries across London between May and July this year.
The Met said: “The men mainly targeted jewellers, using tunnelling techniques to gain access to shops overnight while bypassing security systems.”
Flying Squad Det Supt Dan Mitchell said: “These criminals dug their own hole after emergency response officers caught them red-handed.
“Their arrests didn’t just stop this burglary.
“They formed part of a wider Flying Squad investigation that uncovered an organised crime group linked to a string of jewellery shop break-ins across London worth more than £700,000.”
The gang are also believed to have carried out similar break-ins across Europe.
Nitisoara and Asafeti, both of no fixed address, and Plastin, of Portadown, Northern Ireland, will be sentenced on October 23.
They will be sentenced at Kingston Crown Court.
