He was shot in a parking lot in April 2018
The National Police clarifies the murder of a businessman in the town of La Laguna
In the operation nine people have been arrested – including the crime inducer – for their alleged direct or indirect participation in the events
The alleged material perpetrators, after committing the murder, hid in a house in La Laguna, before moving to the south of the island where they remained hidden for three weeks
Thanks to the exhaustive analysis of more than one million data obtained, the researchers managed to close the circle around those arrested
August 2, 2019. National Police agents have clarified the murder of a businessman in the town of La Laguna in Tenerife. In the operation nine people have been arrested – including the crime inducer – for their alleged direct or indirect participation in the events. The investigation lasted for more than a year.
On April 17, 2018, at 10:10 p.m., in the parking lots of the Official Language School of La Laguna, a man was shot while inside his vehicle after leaving class. The material perpetrator of the crime made eleven shots of which nine hit various parts of the victim's body, causing death on the spot. Several witnesses acknowledged seeing two men in the vicinity of the parking lot, waiting and partially covering their faces with a neckerchief. During the flight, the authors circulated in a prohibited direction towards Los Menceyes Avenue, where they burned the vehicle used to destroy the evidence. The alleged material perpetrators, after committing the murder, hid in a house in La Laguna, before moving to the south of the island where they remained hidden for three weeks.
More than one million data analyzed
Investigators noted that the victim was carrying a die-cut plastic holder in his wallet that lacked a phone card, a card that did not match any of the ones he used in the two mobile phones the victim was carrying. Thanks to the exhaustive analysis of more than one million data obtained, the police officers managed to close the circle around nine people.
One of the greatest difficulties that the homicide investigators of the National Police faced was the impossibility of taking statements and making arrangements with witnesses and the victim's environment. The armor was maximized to avoid interference and destruction of evidence, given the profile of the principal investigated and alleged inducer of the murder. Even one of those investigated repeatedly went to the police offices to provide false facts and facts about the victim, with the clear purpose of disorienting investigators.
The principal investigated maintained contacts and met with the material authors in the first days of April and the morning of the day of the murder. The investigation has allowed us to know that at the end of 2017 the main investigators initiated their contacts and that, from that moment, they tried to protect their communications with security phones that had been acquired in October.
They used activated phone lines with usurped identities
Likewise, it was shown that those investigated had made use of at least 15 mobile phones that were used exclusively to communicate with each other. These telephone lines were in the name of citizens, usually foreigners, who had usurped the identity. This led the agents to a telephone shop where new evidence was obtained that corroborated the police hypotheses.
In addition, it was also known that the used vehicle had been stolen on the Sunday before the murder and transferred to Candelaria, where it remained hidden until Tuesday, April 17 and where the license plates were exchanged for those of an abandoned vehicle in an industrial estate.
The bullets and caps collected at the scene of the crime were analyzed by the Forensic Ballistics Section of the General Police Police Station, determining the experts who had used a semi-automatic pistol with the modified barrel. This is typical of weapons that have been rendered useless and require a gunsmith with specific knowledge to be able to rehabilitate them, which led to the connection of another of those arrested with the facts investigated.
Nine people arrested
In the final phase of the investigation, police proceedings were carried out, some of which were public and notorious, such as the search in the Santos ravine of the weapon used. Investigators already knew and watched the place where two other firearms were hidden, which were subsequently intervened. It was important to avoid the risk of a shooting in the police intervention aimed at intervening in these two firearms, given the extreme danger of the investigated. That is why it was expected that whoever had and hid those two guns would travel to Gran Canaria on vacation, then proceed to his arrest.
That same day, in a coordinated manner, the operation exploitation phase was developed, which culminated in the detention of eight other people and the practice of entry and home searches in the towns of La Laguna, El Rosario, Tacoronte, Güimar, Arona and Granadilla de Abona. A semi-automatic pistol was intervened with the modified barrel and a silencer; as well as a revolver of caliber 38 that were hidden in the home of one of the principal investigators, as well as documentation, mobile phones and memory media that are currently being analyzed.
The detainees were made available to the Judicial Authority, entering five of them in prison.