Charlie Smith
A DANISH fugitive has been arrested in Dubai over a pair of gangland killings on the Costa del Sol.
The man of Iranian heritage is accused of two murders in Estepona and San Pedro in 2018, both described as a ‘settling of accounts’.
A two-year probe to snare the Dane involved Spanish police, Interpol and Europol, as well authorities in Dubai, Qatar, Thailand and Sweden.
The fugitive’s arrest on Thursday comes after a European Arrest and Delivery Order and an International Detention Order were served.
A Policia Nacional statement described the suspect as ‘the head of a criminal organisation dedicated to drug trafficking and settling of accounts’.
The gang he supposedly led included ‘various Scandinavian nationalities’, police said, while Swedish cops are understood to have been key players in the investigation.
Alleged gang members have been linked to 17 murders in Sweden, as well as extortion and drug trafficking.
The Dane is believed to be behind a drive-by hit on a man leaving his daughter’s communion in San Pedro in May 2018.
The victim was gunned down in a car in broad daylight by two shooters who drove by on a motorbike.
The arrested man is also wanted for his part in the slaying of a man on the doorstep of a luxury Estepona villa months later.
A 34-year-old was shot dead as he arrived home to the town’s Campanario urbanisation in August 2018.
In this brutal murder, the killer who covered his face, escaped on a bicycle.
It is also alleged that the captured Dane’s henchmen orchestrated two bomb attacks in Marbella and Benahavis just months later in October.
Swedish police arrested one man over the explosions, which rocked the coast at the time, as the mafia wars appeared to have reached new heights.
The other person of interest to the authorities fled to Morocco after the blasts, before settling in the United Arab Emirates.
Initial intelligence on the whereabouts of the fugitive was gathered via the Enfast network – the European Network of Active Fugitive Search Teams.
Investigators then traced the fugitive, who was using a fake name, to Thailand, but after searches were extended to several hotels and the Thai countryside, the trail went cold.
It was then that the Interior Attache Office of the Kingdom of Spain was contacted in Dubai.
Interpol and Europol then became involved and the Emirati authorities were able to make an arrest.
