Suspected ‘Madrid Paedophile’ arrested

NATIONAL POLICE have arrested a man on suspicion of being the so-called ‘Madrid Paedophile’ today, Wednesday September 24.

The Special Operations department of the National Police has arrested a 45-year-old man suspected of committing a series of crimes of a sexual nature against children in the Madrid neighbourhood of Ciudad Lineal.

According to the Spanish newspaper ABC, officers had been on the trail of the sexual predator for over a year, as he committed crimes in the Ciudad Lineal, Hortaleza and San Blas areas of the city. Police are not ruling out that similar crimes may have been committed in other parts of Spain.

The man was arrested in his native Santander, from where he would travel down to Madrid to supposedly commit his crimes. 

The arrest took place on Wednesday morning as part of ‘Operation Candy,’ after officers carried out checks of mobile phones and car licence plates. A key piece of evidence emerged when CCTV cameras at a Bankia cash machine recorded the number plate of the suspect’s car.

According to sources, the man operated from a safe house in Madrid within a 10-minute radius of where most of the little girls were abducted. After their ordeal, many of the children described having seen a white door and a green fence.

The suspect is thought to have kidnapped the girls in different areas of the neighbourhood, predominantly from play parks or outside schools, and always late in the evening.

The suspect would hold the children captive for a period of around four or five hours, commit crimes of a sexual nature against the girls, and then release them near to metro stations in the area.