On September 20, three Irish citizens were shot while fishing in a lake in Marbella (Málaga, 150,725 inhabitants).
A vehicle approached them at full speed and its occupants opened fire.
They only injured one of the men, who was admitted to the Costa del Sol hospital by his own means.
The National Police then opened an investigation that pointed to a settling of accounts.
The case has already been resolved with the arrest of six people from the United Kingdom who formed an organization of hitmen.
With police records in the British Isles, they killed for hire, although this time they failed.
Weapons of war, pistols, municipal and several machetes have been seized.
Two of them are already in prison.
The main hypothesis with which the researchers worked from the outset was that of a reckoning.
Everything fit because of the way in which the events had occurred.
The now arrested had approached in a stolen car to the place where the Irish citizens were, shot them and immediately escaped from there.
When the health services and police patrols went to the scene after a neighbor called the 112 Andalusia Emergency Service, they found no trace of the attackers or the victims.
Only one of the men was shot and entered the Costa del Sol hospital by his own foot, although his life was never in danger.
The hitmen, all of British nationality, are in their twenties.
They belong to a gang dedicated to drug trafficking that has settled in Malaga.
It is believed that their victims also, since they also have a history of drug trafficking in their country, as the National Police was able to confirm.
They are rival groups that had already had their quarrels on British soil and have transferred their disputes to the Malaga coast.
Sources of the case do not reveal exactly the cause of this shooting, but they do confirm that there is a long enmity between them.
Those now detained had GPS devices to know the movements and locations at all times of their objectives.
They did it to "be able to choose the best time and place to act with total impunity," according to one of the agents who took part in the investigation.
When the hitmen discovered that their targets used to go fishing in the Lake of the Turtles, they bet on that spot and waited.
The lake is a small pond located to the north of the Marbella municipality, next to the AP7 motorway, hidden among a grove of trees and away from the nearby urbanizations.
They went there, in a stolen car with false license plates, during the sunny afternoon of September 20, supposedly to end the lives of the three fishing enthusiasts.
But they failed.
They then decided to spend some time in hiding to avoid being located by the police.
They established themselves in different municipalities of the Costa del Sol —Marbella, Estepona, Fuengirola and Coín— and reduced their activity to a minimum.
Until they relaxed too much and confidently set a new goal for themselves.
They did not know then that the National Police had them under control.
And before they could carry out a new assassination attempt, on February 1st the police officers arrested the six investigated.
The operation was led by Group II of the Drugs and Organized Crime Unit (Udyco) of the Costa del Sol and agents of the Special Response Group for Organized Crime (Greco) Costa del Sol.
In the searches carried out during the so-called Tortuga operation, four pistols, a revolver, a submachine gun, 300 cartridges of various calibers, several machetes, two taser pistols, a bulletproof vest, ski mask, bridles, a GPS location system, inhibitors, the stolen vehicle and 300 ecstasy pills.
All the weapons, according to the police, were loaded and ready to be used.
In fact, in one of the interventions, one of those now arrested pointed the gun at the policemen, although he gave up after the agents fired several intimidating shots.
The six detainees are considered allegedly responsible for the crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, murder, deposit of war weapons, illegal possession of weapons, counterfeiting and reception.
After being brought to justice, two of them have already entered prison.
The case is in the hands of the Court of Instruction number 4 of Marbella.
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