The National Police have arrested fifteen people for their alleged involvement in the kidnapping of four men who were subjected to torture, in Marbella (Málaga).
Everything indicates that the reason for the kidnapping could have been the theft of 1,500 kilos of hashish. The agents have explained that the victims were handcuffed, subjected to beatings, threats and also deprived of essential goods such as food and medicine, “to take them to an extreme situation, in order to provide information about the destination of the drug.”
In the operation, half a dozen searches have been carried out at homes in Marbella, Benahavís and Estepona, and it has ended with the intervention of drugs, a pistol, abundant ammunition, some 50,000 euros vacuum-packed, several vehicles and false license plates, among others. effects.
In total there are thirteen people detained in the province of Malaga and another two in Granada. All of them are implicated for crimes of kidnapping, belonging to a criminal organization, illegal possession of weapons, robbery with violence, vehicle theft, document falsification and injuries.
The kidnapping of the four men took place on December 2 at the home of one of them, in Marbella, but the operation has now ended after the latest arrests. The victims were approached by a group of between six and eight armed people, who tied their hands and feet and took them in a van to another house in the town of Malaga. From that moment they were deprived of their phones and threatened to obtain their passwords.
After them, they contacted their relatives and demanded a ransom of five million euros under the threat of never seeing their loved ones alive again.
Between December 4 and 5, the agents received four reports of disappearance. These cases were quickly connected to each other, since they occurred in the same spatio-temporal framework and had many similarities.
During the investigations, one of the victims was released by his captors and the search continued to find the whereabouts of the other three victims, one of them with severe diabetes.
After a week of kidnapping, the agents located the home of one of the victims where they found four hashish pills of 100 grams each, in addition to remains of burlap that are usually used to wrap the bales.
Finally, the searches led to a villa in Marbella where the victims remained kidnapped. There, one of the hostages, who was in critical condition, was released.
The attackers, due to police pressure and the fear of being prosecuted for homicide, “in extremis” released one of the dying victims, who had been rendered unconscious by suffering from a diabetic coma and who remained hospitalized for more than a month.
At the place of captivity, the agents arrested four people with firearms and rescued the other two victims, tied hand and foot, with multiple injuries. They also recovered a stolen van and another car used in the kidnapping.
