In Britain, they claimed to be destitute, living on benefits and scrounging from tourists to whom they sold the Big Issue.
But
in fact the Rostas family had five huge palaces in their Romanian
homeland, financed by the proceeds of a massive pickpocketing racket
here.
These are the
gaudy mansions the family of Roma gipsies built after stealing hundreds
of thousands of pounds from commuters, snatching mobile phones and cash
as they dozed on late-night trains from London to Kent.

Bad taste: The Rostas family built five gaudy mansions in their homeland financed by their racket here
The stolen phones were sold in Romania to generate huge profits which the family used to build this 16-bedroom villa. A few streets away four similar blue-roofed palaces, all decorated with the Mercedes car emblem to symbolise wealth, are shared by other members of the extended family.
All are unfinished to avoid paying Romanian property taxes.
When the Daily Mail tracked down relatives of the clan who live in the small town of Huedin in Transylvania, one was eager to boast about the family’s riches. He said: ‘Yes, we are very, very rich family. We work in England, Spain and France. We make a lot of money.’
The young gipsy proudly gestured to the five-storey house built with stolen cash, adding: ‘We have spent a fortune on this. Well over a million euros.’

Lavish display: The Mercedes symbols on the roof of one of their houses in Huedin, Transylvania, symbolise wealth

Dodgy: The family deliberately left windows unfinished on this five-storey building to avoid property taxes

Ostentatious: The distinctive luxury homes built
by the the family - who admit to robbing sleeping commuters - tower
over the town in north-west Romania
Parked outside their palaces were Mercedes, Audis and BMWs with English and Irish number plates.
Police believe the family may be part of a wider criminal network spread across Europe, operating in Britain, Ireland, Spain and France. One neighbour, Artur Potra, 42, a retired engineering technician, said: ‘They have never worked in Romania. They just steal, steal, steal. They started out trading stolen whisky and cigarettes in the 1990s before they moved into Britain.
‘They spend 11 months of the year there and then they come back here for one month and put another 10,000 euros on the house.
‘The mobile phones are sold on the streets and the markets and they also operate as loan sharks here, but they get no trouble because they bribe the police.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106131/Pickpockets-palaces-The-Romanian-mansions-built-targeting-UK-commuters.html#ixzz1nNbfFvPK
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