The Civil Guard has arrested three people for the double crime that occurred in the past and about which the hypothesis is being considered that it was derived from a fight between criminal gangs. The two deceased were found just one hour apart: one of them was tied up in the trunk of a car in the district of Ramonete and the other, in the vicinity of a house in the area of El Cantal. The proximity between both points, the closeness of the time in which the crimes would have occurred and the fact that both bodies had gunshot wounds led to them being investigated from the outset as two related events, as explained this Friday in a press conference by Civil Guard lieutenant Paula Segura, who has been in charge of the investigation.
One of the deceased was Giuliano Velo, an Italian drug trafficker. However, as indicated by the lieutenant, at the moment no indication has been found that the double crime is related to the Italian mafia. The hypothesis being considered is that the detainees and the victims were part of two criminal gangs that were negotiating the conditions to carry out some type of criminal activity, probably related to drug or weapons trafficking. The negotiation, however, did not go well and led to a fight in which a shootout occurred, in which the two deceased would have lost their lives.
The arrests occurred simultaneously in the early hours of December 3. The most delicate intervention was carried out at a home in Roquetas de Mar (Almería), where the main suspect of the crime resided, and who received weapons in hand from the agents of the Special Intervention Unit of the Civil Guard, an elite unit of the force, due to the special danger of the operation. In total about 50 agents intervened.
At the home of this man, who is already in provisional prison, a 9-millimeter pistol-type short weapon and two submachine-type long weapons were found, one of them considered a weapon of war due to its type of ammunition, 7.62 millimeters. The agents also seized numerous ammunition and several mobile phones.
Lieutenant Segura has highlighted the danger of the detainees and the weapons that have been seized and has explained that removing them from circulation was one of the reasons that motivated the acceleration of the arrests. Two other people who were not related to Lorca’s double crime, but who are accused of the crime of illegal possession of weapons, were also arrested at the same address.
In parallel to this intervention, two other people were arrested in their respective homes in Murcia and Lorca: one of them has been sent to prison and the other has been released with charges. The operation is still open, so it is not ruled out that there are more arrests. Those accused so far have an extensive criminal history and numerous records for all types of crimes.
