Three arrested for the murder of a man in October found in a sack in a reservoir in Almogía

The investigation concludes that the death was motivated by a settling of scores in the framework of drug trafficking.

Resource image of a National Police officer. National Police

Created: 15.04.2026 10:49 – Last update: 15.04.2026 10:49

The National Police has reported, after decreeing the lifting of the judicial secrecy of the proceedings, of the keys to the murder of the 31-year-old Albanian citizen, whose lifeless body, in a state of saponification, was found last autumn inside a sack in the Casasola reservoir, in Almogía (Malaga). There are three detainees in connection with these events.

The investigation concludes that the death was motivated by a settling of scores, within the framework of international drug trafficking, and that the victim fell into the trap of his captors, who had summoned him, under deception, to close an alleged transaction, finally ending his life.

Thus, the three people arrested have been arrested in the province of Barcelona for their alleged involvement in the homicide, who have been placed in provisional detention by order of the competent judicial authority, the National Police said in a statement.

Those arrested are two men, compatriots of the deceased and related to drug trafficking, who are considered the material authors of the death, and a Spanish woman, a necessary cooperator, who had rented a vehicle in her name, making it available to the previous ones to perpetrate the crime.

Similarly, three searches have been carried out in the Barcelona towns of Vallirana and Villafranca del Penedés, which ended with the intervention of several simulated weapons, mobile phones and documentation of interest to the investigation.

According to the statement, the investigation, assumed by agents of the Organized Crime Group of the Marbella Police Station, together with members of the Udyco Costa del Sol and the Group 23 of the UDET in Barcelona, began following the complaint of a woman who reported the disappearance of her partner, a 31-year-old Albanian man,  in strange circumstances.

With the collaboration of the complainant, the investigators reconstructed the last hours of the missing person. On May 12, 2025, the couple was eating at a restaurant in the Malaga town of Marbella when he received a call from some supposed “friends”, who summoned him to meet at a well-known inn in the Malaga neighborhood of Puerto de la Torre.

It was the last time the woman saw her partner, both based in Benahavís (Malaga), where they led “a high lifestyle”.

The first investigations placed the investigators before an involuntary disappearance. The National Police found evidence that the missing person reached the meeting point, next to an inn in Puerto de la Torre, and there he got into a vehicle with two occupants, all heading towards a mountainous area in the vicinity of a panatano, in Almogía.

DISCOVERY OF THE BODY

At the same time, as the investigations progressed, in the Casasola reservoir, a motorhome user located a suspicious sack on October 14 where the authorities discovered the body of a deceased person, handcuffed with zip ties. The corpse, in a state of saponification, showed some tattoos.

In addition, cement blocks were found inside the bundle with which it would have been intended to sink the sack at the bottom of the reservoir.

According to the investigators, everything suggests that the lowering of the level of the dam, after the summer season, exposed the foreign body, frustrating the authors’ plan to make the body disappear, and with it the evidence of the crime.

The DNA results, together with other complementary evidence, such as the corpse’s clothing and tattoos, made it possible to identify the deceased, who turned out to be the young Albanian whose disappearance had been reported months ago by his partner, in Marbella. The autopsy also confirmed the violent etiology of the death.

Finally, the agents were able to pull the thread of the vehicle into which the missing man got on. The car in question, which had been rented in an establishment in Barcelona by a woman, traveled, in the days prior to the disappearance, through the area where the victim’s track was lost.

Thus, the National Police identified the woman, 58, who had rented the vehicle used in the plot and, from her, put names and surnames to the alleged perpetrators of the homicide, two Albanian men, aged 36 and 45, who had travelled from Barcelona to the province of Malaga to carry out the crime.

All of them were arrested last February for their alleged responsibility in the crimes of murder and membership of a criminal organization.

The investigators carried out two entry and search procedures in two homes related to the material authors, in Vallirana, where documentation in the name of the only woman arrested, telephone and simulated weapons were seized.

A third search was also carried out at the suspect’s home, in Villafranca del Penedés. Finally, they have pointed out that the family of the deceased, in the course of the investigation, was pressured with threats, apparently by members of the criminal plot, to cease the search for the victim.