Spain’s Guardia Civil police said on Monday, that they had arrested a 43-year-old Pakistani man in connection with the murder of three siblings in their 70s.
The victims were found dead in their residence in Morata de Tajuña, a village approximately 35 kilometeres southeast of Madrid, with signs suggesting a connection to an online romance scam that led to substantial debts.
According to a statement from the police, the suspect ‘turned himself in’ on Sunday night, confessing to ‘his involvement in incidents related to the triple murder’.
The bodies, discovered on Thursday by the police, were partially burned and left in a pile inside the house in the village.
Neighbours had raised concerns after not seeing the two sisters and their disabled brother for some time, prompting an investigation that revealed their deaths were being treated as homicides, possibly linked to an outstanding debt.
The detained individual, refrred to only as D.H.F.C, was the ‘main suspect’ in the case as he had ‘previously injured one of the female victime last year’, the police said.
Local reports from Spanish media suggest that there is a connection between the tragedy and a fraudulent online romance, and that the two sisters had engaged in what they believed to be a long-distance relationship with two alleged US servicemen.
The scam involved convincing the sisters that one of the servicemen had passed away and the other required funds to send them a multi-million-dollar inheritance, causing the sisters to rack up significant debts.
Initially they began borrowing money from neighbours with the town’s mayor Francisco Villalain telling Spanish media they had rented out a room in their home to the Pakistani suspect for several months.
During that time, the suspect had reportedly lent them €60,000 which they had never repaid, prompting his violent attack on one of the sisters for which he was briefly jailed.
‘They weren’t asking for €100 or €20, they were asking you for €5,000 or €6,000,’ one neighbour had told Spain’s national broadcaster TVE on Friday.
Spanish media reported that despite warnings from neighbours, the sisters continued sending money under the belief that the surviving soldier would provide a promised inheritance of seven million euros, refusing to acknowledge the scam.
The police have not commented on these specific reports.
Anoche un hombre se entregó en la guardia civil y confesó ser el autor del crimen de los 3 hermanos de Morata de Tajuña, en Madrid.
— Telediarios de TVE (@telediario_tve) January 22, 2024
Los detalles con Elisa Cardenal
▶ https://t.co/mqhOpSTjiD pic.twitter.com/ev8SucJhS6
🔴 #ÚLTIMAHORA | Un detenido en Morata de Tajuña en relación al triple crimen de los hermanos https://t.co/st82P7dX9r
— laSexta Noticias (@sextaNoticias) January 22, 2024
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