Who is behind the kidnapping of Hichem Aboud in Barcelona?

BarcelonaIt was a Thursday in October in the upper part of Barcelona. It was just a few minutes before midnight when, suddenly, the neighbors on Raset Street heard loud screams. Some of them looked out the window and saw three hooded men assault a man and force him into a black Range Rover. No one heard anything more about the man until the next day: a thousand kilometers from Sarrià, the Civil Guard suspected some men who, at night, were loading something onto a boat on the Guadalquivir River. They approached and discovered that the commodity He was a man: Hichem Aboud, an Algerian journalist, best known for his opposition work in this country's Diet.

On the banks of the Guadalquivir, Spanish police arrested two 30-year-old men who have since been held in pretrial detention. However, the investigation had only just begun. Were there other perpetrators of the kidnapping? Who had ordered them to do so? The Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) of the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) in Barcelona, ​​​​which was investigating the kidnapping in Barcelona, ​​​​and the Civil Guard, which freed Aboud in Andalusia, created a joint team. According to ARA, they have managed to locate and arrest the alleged perpetrators of the kidnapping. On April 2, the police arrested five men in the towns of Málaga, Fuengirola, and Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and are investigating another who resides in Portugal, where a team of Catalan and Spanish police traveled. Four of those arrested are already in pretrial detention.

The detainees are between 46 and 29 years old, and most have a history of common crimes, such as property and public health offenses, in Andalusia. After an extensive investigation, which has been ongoing since October 2024, the Mossos d'Inquisition (DIC) and the Civil Guard have been able to shed more light on the kidnapping, but there are still unanswered questions. One is who is the mastermind of the operation, as the arrests affect those who supposedly played an important role on the ground, but everything points to them following orders from a superior who has not been identified at this time. "Only the Algerian government is interested in kidnapping me," Hichem Aboud said in an interview with ARA.

Obstacles

However, the investigation has been able to clarify that this group of people living in Andalusia were hired by someone who wanted to kidnap Aboud. Along the way, they encountered several obstacles that led them to also subcontract (and involve) a criminal organization dedicated to hashish trafficking.

It all began with a deception: the kidnappers allegedly created a fake Facebook profile to talk to Aboud and gain his trust. The journalist lives under constant threat, and that profile offered him a hiding place in Barcelona. A taxi driver took him from the airport to the address, but it was all a distraction: he waited and waited, until the kidnappers arrived and took him away.

They tied him up, handcuffed him, and gagged him, and the car entered the AP-7 motorway heading towards Andalusia, with a vehicle in front of it warning of a Mossos d'Esquadra checkpoint. They accompanied them on foot across the field so the Range Rover could pass the checkpoint without Aboud. Afterward, they were picked up again.

Under that nickname, El Tarta led a group that trafficked hashish along the Guadalquivir. Seeing that the initial extraction method had failed, the kidnappers contacted this gang, which offered them the boat on the Guadalquivir, which the Civil Guard in Andalusia would arrest a few hours later. By a simple coincidence, El Tarta's gang was dismantled by the Civil Guard in April, uncovering his involvement in the kidnapping.

However, the investigation by the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Spanish police already knew of his involvement, and the investigation continued until they located the five alleged perpetrators of the kidnapping, who were still living their lives in Andalusia. The investigation suggests they wanted to put Aboud on a boat and take him to the African coast. The journalist published a book highly critical of the Algerian authorities that has become a classic,The Mafia of the Generals(The Generals' Mafia), in which he exposes the workings of the power structure in this North African country. Aged 69, he has lived in exile in France since 1997.