Drug trafficker arrested over body found with incision in stomach
A young lawyer, thought to be a drug mule, turned up dead in Málaga in 2010 The suspect is alleged to have let the man die before cutting out cocaine bags from his intestines
In August 2010 a young lawyer turned up dead near a forest trail in Ojén, in the southern province of Málaga. His body was found naked and covered in clear plastic sheeting and there was a large incision in his abdomen.
Four years later, the Civil Guard has arrested the alleged perpetrator of the homicide, a Colombian drug trafficker with the initials J. A. V. H.. According to investigators, the suspect belongs to a network of dealers who hired the dead lawyer – who had joint Spanish and Colombian nationality and lived in Fuegirola, Málaga – as a mule. He is thought to have let the victim suffer in agony from an obstruction caused by the large number of cocaine packets he was carrying inside him. After his death, the suspect is believed to have cut him open and removed the drugs.
After the body was found, the authorities began to investigate, and discovered that the victim, identified by his initials J. A. U. I., was going through financial difficulties. Their inquiries led them to the suspect, a trafficker who belonged to an investigation mostly based in Colombia, which was dedicated to sending cocaine into Spain via human drug mules. The drug couriers would have to travel from Colombia to Chile, and then on to Spain, to avoid being detected on the direct route, which is subject to surveillance.
The lawyer was carrying nearly a kilo of cocaine in his body
After the arrest of the suspect, the authorities found 334 grams of cocaine, 570 grams of amphetamines, 36 grams of hashish, a precision scale and a large amount of documents.
An autopsy carried out on the victim ruled that he had died as a result of an obstruction in his intestines, given that he was carrying nearly a kilo of cocaine in his body. No drugs were found inside his body. The autopsy did, however, turn up traces of painkillers. “He may have been given these by the organization to mitigate the pain that he must have suffered until he died,” explains a Civil Guard source.
The members of the gang are thought to have removed the drugs from inside the lawyer’s body, and then sewn up the wound in his stomach with fishing line. They then dumped his body in the forest in Ojén, in an attempt to prevent it from being identified.
