Overview

• Operation Hitman in Málaga led to six arrests, including a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old from Göteborg stopped within 48 hours of arrival while riding an electric scooter.
• Searches in Fuengirola and Marbella yielded three loaded firearms, multiple magazines, 15 phones, 16 SIM cards, concealment gear and IT material, alongside documents pointing to drug-trafficking links.
• Judicial measures include prison for the adult suspect and closed detention for the minor, while four alleged facilitators — including the presumed leader — were later detained and released, according to judicial sources.
• Investigators report the would-be killers engaged via encrypted platforms and social networks that advertised paid assassinations, reflecting a wider ‘violence as a service’ trend flagged by Europol.
• In separate actions, police detained three youths over nine cars stolen from Palma dealerships — one used in a robbery of an 80-year-old — dismantled an itinerant Georgian group that marked about 66 homes in Palencia with its leader bound for a CIE, and arrested a 38-year-old in Valencia for eight violent ‘tirón’ robberies.