Costa News Spain Breaking News | English News in Spain.
Five people have now been detained in a kidnapping investigation on the Costa del Sol, but police have still not found the missing man at the centre of the case.
The latest development follows CNS’s earlier report on the court action in the same probe, when four suspects were remanded in custody. Investigators say the case began after a disappearance reported in Marbella in June.
According to the new reporting, officers began work after a woman filed a missing-person complaint at Marbella police station on 11 June. She said her partner, a 40-year-old man, had vanished after meeting a supposed friend at a café in San Pedro Alcántara the previous day.
The inquiry, known as Operation Bernabé, has involved Udyco officers from Marbella and Estepona. Police also examined a fire at the man’s home a month before he disappeared, when several of his vehicles were torched in what investigators believe may have been a warning.
How the man disappeared
Investigators reconstructed the man’s last known movements through CCTV and other evidence. They concluded that he did attend the meeting in San Pedro and then got into the car of the person he had gone there to see.
The route of that vehicle was then traced to a rural area of Estepona, where the occupants changed cars again before the trail led to a mountainous area and later a finca on the outskirts of the town, according to the report.
Despite the arrests, the victim has not been located. The article says police have no body or remains and have not been able to confirm whether he was killed after the kidnapping.
Links to organised crime
Sources quoted in the report say the case is linked to the Kinahan criminal network, although that allegation has not been established in court. The same sources say the suspects are understood to be linked to the organisation rather than to a separate rival gang.
ABC also reported that the investigation formed part of a wider look at the Kinahan presence on the Costa del Sol, where the group is said to have maintained contacts despite earlier criminal cases against its members.
The man’s disappearance has remained unresolved for more than four months, and the inquiry is still under way.
