Arrests made in businessman assassination case

NINE people have been arrested in connection with the brutal assassination of a businessman on the Spanish island of Tenerife. 

On April 17, 2018, at 10.10 pm a man was shot nine times as he sat in his car after leaving a lesson at the Official Language School of La Laguna. 

He died instantly. Several witnesses had seen two men in the vicinity of the car park, waiting and partially covering their faces with scarves. 

During their escape, the gunmen travelled the wrong way down a one-way road, before abandoning and setting fire to their getaway vehicle. 

The alleged perpetrators then hid out in a house in La Laguna, before moving to the south of the island where they remained hidden for three weeks. 

Police started a complex investigation that involved analysing up to a million pieces of data, hinging on mobile phone records. 

An examination of a car found the plastic card a phone’s SIM card comes on but without the actual card. The SIMs in the victim’s two mobiles did not match. This proved to be the crucial evidence that led police to the alleged killers and their associates. 

Police discovered there was a group of people who had been using SIM cards where the details of innocent people – usually foreigners- had been used. 

This led the agents to a telephone store where new evidence was obtained that backed up police theories. 

The bullets and shell casings collected at the scene of the shooting were analysed by the Forensic Balistic Section of the General Scientific Police Station. This showed that a semi-automatic pistol with a modified barrel had been used. This is typical of weapons that have been disabled and need a gunsmith with specific knowledge to reactivate them, which led them to one of the arrested men. 

Having identified their suspects after a year-long investigation, police launched coordinated raids in the towns of La Laguna, El Rosario, TacoronteGüimar, Arona and Granadilla de Abona. 

Eight  people were arrested and a semi-automatic pistol with a modified barrel and a silencer were seized, as well as a 38-calibre revolver that was hidden in the home of one of the suspects. Also confiscated were documentation, mobile phones and memory cards that are being analysed. 

Five of the detainees have been remanded in custody. 

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Dilip Kuner

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