The Civil Guard has arrested three men and a woman between the ages of 24 and 63 who tried to assassinate a businessman from Puçol in Valencia last December by shooting him from a motorcycle.
The victim managed to escape unharmed "by a few centimeters" and fled when the assailants tried to shoot again, the Provincial Command of the Civil Guard reported in a statement.
Two of the detainees fired a firearm from a motorcycle, while a third provided cover from a vehicle and the woman hid the weapon.
The businessman from Puçol denounced that when he arrived at his company with his vehicle and just as he opened the driver's door to get out, two people who were riding a motorcycle stopped at his height and without saying a word pointed a firearm at him. .
The assailants fired a first shot that missed him in the head by a few centimeters and when they were about to fire a second shot, he quickly accelerated and managed to flee with his vehicle.
The Civil Guard appeared at the scene and carried out a visual inspection in which they found a casing from a short firearm with metallic rimfire ammunition, caliber 22, and a lead projectile, deformed after the impact.
After collection, custody and delivery, they were analyzed in the ballistics department of the Civil Guard Crime Laboratory in Valencia. Through the identification of the used motorcycle, the agents discovered that the assailants were part of a criminal group of Colombian hitmen based in the provinces of Valencia and Girona.
After the police reconstruction of the movements of the suspects, the civil guards found out that for three months before the assassination attempt, the three men arrested carried out sporadic surveillance of the victim and his surroundings.
The objective was to establish recognition of the area, hours and habits of the victim as well as access routes, escape and the ideal place to carry out the crime.
From that moment on, the investigative team focused its efforts on locating the weapon, determining that a fourth person, the detained woman, was in charge of providing cover for the organization in concealing the firearm.
This person received periodic payments through an intermediary through an immediate transfer application. This group of hitmen was going to charge 30,000 euros for the execution of the victim and had already received 15,000 euros as an advance.
According to the Civil Guard investigators, the hitmen planned to attempt the assassination again this summer, since although one of the members of the gang was convalescing from an operation, the rest had already looked for a substitute hitman who was going to travel from Colombia.
Faced with the imminent threat of a new attack on the victim's life and for the sake of his protection, the Civil Guard has arrested and completely dismantled this group. For this, five searches have been made at homes, two in the town of Sollana (Valencia) and three in Figueres (Girona).
In them, two short ammunition firearms have been located and intervened, one of them with a silencer, as well as a business card with the address and telephone number of the victim's company, a handwritten map of the town of Puçol, the motorcycle used by the authors and the tourism that covered them.
In total there are four arrests: three men and one woman, all of Colombian nationality, between the ages of 24 and 63. The three men are charged with the crime of attempted murder, belonging to a criminal group and illegal possession of weapons, while the detained woman is charged with the crimes of belonging to a criminal group and illegal possession of weapons.
The investigation is being carried out by the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 1 of Massamagrell, which has ordered the provisional detention of the three perpetrators and release with precautionary measures for the fourth person.
