National Police officers have freed a man who had been kidnapped in Sabinillas (Málaga) in under 16 hours. The officers have arrested four people as suspected perpetrators of the offences of kidnapping, membership of a criminal organisation and unlawful possession of weapons. A photograph showing a steering wheel with the vehicle manufacturer’s logo was key to the victim’s release, and videos in which the victim was threatened with a pistol while being questioned about a third person who had allegedly defrauded them of €30,000 point to a settling of scores as the motive for the kidnapping.
The investigation began on 23 January, when officers learned, following a complaint, that two days earlier a man had been kidnapped on the seafront promenade in the Málaga town of Sabinillas. According to the officers’ enquiries, the incident took place on a public road when a group of unknown men, travelling in two vehicles, forced the man into the boot of one of the cars while asking him about the whereabouts of a third person who, it seems, had defrauded them of €30,000 in a drug transaction. The complainant also provided photographs and videos of the victim’s captivity, in one of which he appears face down with a pistol pointed at his head while being asked about the individual who had defrauded them.
A vehicle’s steering wheel and some coordinates key to the release
While the victim was being held, he managed to contact the complainant, a friend of both of them and his partner. He sent the latter a photograph taken from inside a vehicle, in which the manufacturer’s logo could be seen on the steering wheel, and some geographical coordinates that placed him on a street in Torre del Mar (Vélez-Málaga).
With the information provided, and given the seriousness of the incident, the officers began numerous enquiries to locate and free the victim, as well as to arrest those responsible, going immediately to the location given by the complainant. There they found a parked vehicle whose model and make matched the one in the photograph taken by the victim, so they set up a police operation in the area. Shortly afterwards they saw that there was another vehicle at the scene, behind the one they were watching, whose characteristics matched one of the cars used in the Sabinillas kidnapping and in which a man was sitting in the driver’s seat.
A few hours later, the officers spotted two vehicles parking near the earlier ones, one of which matched the make, model and colour of the other car used in the kidnapping. It was at that moment that the investigators saw the victim being taken out of the back of the last vehicle mentioned and put into the middle of the back seat of another of the cars. Following this manoeuvre, the officers began following the vehicle, which was finally intercepted while travelling along the A7 motorway towards Málaga.
The victim, who was in good health and without any injury, was freed and four people were arrested, less than 16 hours after the officers learned of the incident.
https://youtu.be/MkGll3OFAk4
