Online romance scam leads to triple murder in Spain

Spanish police are investigating the circumstances of the murder of three elderly people, two sisters and a brother, and the connection of the crime with an online fraud involving two of the victims, UNN reports citing the BBC.

Details

The local guard detained a 42-year-old man of Pakistani origin, whose name was given as Dilawar Hussain. It is known that he surrendered to the police and confessed to the murders.

The bodies of two sisters and a brother, Amelia (67), Angeles (74) and Jose Gutierrez Ayuso (77), were found last week in their home. They were partially burned.

According to the Guard, it appears that the motive for the murder was a debt owed by the siblings to the suspect, related to the sisters' apparent involvement in online fraud.

According to the reports, friends and neighbors said that Angeles and Amelia remained in an online relationship for several years with people who posed as men from the United States. During this time, they transferred up to 400,000 euros to "Edward," allegedly a member of the US Army, and his friend. Part of their interaction was carried out via Facebook.

Jose Gutiérrez Ayuso, suffering from mental disorders, did not participate in the money transfer.

The relationship drained the siblings' finances, leading them to beg for money from local residents and turn to informal lenders. According to the Spanish newspaper ABC, they even asked the mayor and priest of Morata de Tahunya, where they lived, for money.

Hussein, who had been living in his sisters' and brother's house for several months, told police that the sisters owed him a large sum of money at high interest rates but had not paid it. Although he had assaulted Amelia twice while living in her home, he was released after seven months in September last year.

After neighbors reported that they had not seen or heard from the siblings for a long time, the police entered their home and found the bodies.

Enrique Velilla, their friend, said that the sisters' insistence on sending money online forced them to sell their property in Madrid. His words were reinforced by the fact that the bank had warned them of possible fraud. However, the sisters refused to recognize it and continued to believe in their supposed boyfriends.

"We told them that it was all a lie, that it was a fraud," he said. - "But they didn't want to hear the word 'fraud'. (...) They were stupid. They were just ordinary people who fell in love.

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