Tied to a tree near Barcelona, in the town of Collbató, at the foot of the Montserrat mountain. This is how an international gang of very violent kidnappers left an 82-year-old Portuguese businessman abandoned. The man, who was found by a neighbor when he could untie himself, was the victim of a kidnapping, but the organized group was preparing more. That is, until he was dismantled in a joint operation between the Mossos d'Esquadra, the National Police, the Portuguese police and Interpol that resulted in nine detainees.
The gang was led by three people aged 24 and 25 from Brazil, now in prison. They wanted to import the express kidnapping model, more common in South America.
The investigation began in August, when the Portuguese businessman was kidnapped at gunpoint and put in his vehicle when he was on his way to show a house to potential buyers, according to what the different security forces involved reported this Thursday at a press conference. He was transferred from the town of Almancil, in the Algarve of Portugal, to Catalonia, traveling some 1,200 kilometers under threats.
The objective was not to ask for a ransom for their release, but to empty their bank accounts after obtaining the passwords through violence. Thus they managed to usurp an amount greater than 100,000 euros. After that, the victim, with great purchasing power, was abandoned in Collbató.
But while the kidnappers were plotting their next hit, the police also got to work. “Transfers between accounts were examined. In fact, the same day they abandoned the Portuguese businessman they used a card,” said Inspector Rafael Montes, head of the criminal investigation division (DIC) of the Southern Metropolitan Region of the Mossos.
The gang was divided into two groups: the three who carried out the kidnappings and the rest, who tried to launder the stolen capital, now free with charges. They made bank transfers to accounts in France and Lithuania. In total about fifty movements were recorded. They also made several purchases in the center of Barcelona.
“It was a very professional organization because of the precautions they took. But there is always some error. In this case, it was the purchase of a phone and a case,” revealed Juan Castillo, chief inspector of Udyco of the provincial brigade of the Alicante Judicial Police. That mobile device allowed them to locate one of the kidnappers in Alicante, who ended up being arrested “when he entered a brothel with a firearm to try to carry out a robbery,” Castillo explained. The first kidnapper had already fallen. His partners were missing.
Investigators were already well on top of the criminal group when in December they detected that some of the main suspects traveled to Portugal again. In Setúbal they tried to kidnap a woman by threatening her with a gun. But her husband struggled with them and they gave up, although they ended up fleeing with the victim's car.
The GPS of the stolen vehicle allowed five members of the criminal group to be arrested in Torremolinos on December 12. The rest were arrested in subsequent days in Alicante, Sucina (Murcia) and Malaga.
