A father and a son Catalan, arrested in Paraguay for a double murder

BarcelonaTwo men from Granollers have been arrested in southern Paraguay accused of the murder of two people and the attempted homicide of a third, with whom they had arranged a supposed sale of gold, according to Efe. Paraguayan police explain that the murder occurred on Thursday, when the Catalans, a father and his son, drove the three Paraguayans to a house within a recreational park in the city of Encarnación, capital of the department of Itapúa, which borders Argentina.

The men, identified by various local media as F.B.U. and his son A.B.G, natives of Granollers, had allegedly promised to deliver gold in exchange for about 370 million guaranis (almost 54,000 euros). According to the reconstruction of events, however, once in the house they allegedly tied up the buyers and shot them to take their money. They allegedly murdered two and left a third injured, who allegedly feigned death and then managed to escape to ask for help.

According to Commissioner Javier Flores, of the Paraguayan police, the men did not have gold but rather "stones" or golden minerals that they intended to pass off as the precious metal. The commissioner also told Efe that three more people of Bolivian nationality, two women who are the partners of the Catalans and a man accompanying them, have been arrested while it is being investigated whether they are related to the crime.

Kidnapping in Barcelona

F.B.U. is a person known to the Catalan police. He was sentenced in May 2014 by the Barcelona Court to ten years in prison for planning, from a prison in Valencia, the kidnapping of the son of a drug trafficker with whom he shared a cell. The objective was to demand a ransom of five million euros in exchange for the release of the minor, who was then 11 years old. According to the sentence, the now detained in Paraguay had met the father of the minor in July 2012 in the Valencia prison, where he was serving a sentence for a drug trafficking offense.

Shortly after, he offered the drug trafficker to arrange for his wife and his 11-year-old son to obtain Spanish nationality, assuring him that he had “contacts” with the Spanish police. The minor's mother and son were deceived into going to Plaça Cerdà in Barcelona on September 25, 2012, under the pretext of carrying out the nationality procedures. But people trusted by F.B.U. took them to an undeveloped area in Viladecans, where they threatened the mother with a pistol and kidnapped the minor, demanding a ransom of 5 million euros from the woman.

The child was in the hands of the captors for two days, sedated with narcotics, until the Mossos d'Esquadra managed to free him on September 27, 2012, after breaking into an apartment located on Carrer Trajà in Barcelona. According to the Court, the accused was the mastermind of the kidnapping and had given precise instructions to people he trusted – who were also convicted – to carry it out. "No errors are admitted; if not, we will dismember the cat [the victim's code name]," said a handwritten letter with the kidnapping instructions found in the apartment where the minor was held.