Antonio Caba, an alleged fraudster accused of the disappearances and deaths of Ciudad Real businessmen

Pronouncing the name of Antonio Caba in Manzanares (Ciudad Real, 18,000 inhabitants) has become thorny.

This 48-year-old trafficker or real estate broker, arrested Tuesday after the remains of the disappeared businessman Juan Miguel Isla were taken out of a well on one of his farms, is being pursued by a trail of scams, deceit and death for more than a decade .

Fond of rubbing shoulders with "people with money", "politicians" (for a time he was linked to the local PP) and "civil guards" - "he went in and out of the headquarters like Pedro through his house", explain sources who have known the individual since years ago—, this fan of hunting does not hide his taste for weapons and is famous for "always staying close to the tree that gives the most shade."

Isla, 59, had disappeared on July 12, when she went from Alicante to Manzanares to collect money that Caba was going to pay her for the sale of her family's land.

Now, the discovery of his remains has revived the past of the salesman with whom he went to meet the day he disappeared, and has brought to light a string of debts, defaults, loans and promissory notes that show a kind of pyramid scheme.

"[Caba] would make friends with whoever he knew handled money, trick him into getting into some business with him, then borrow money and not pay it back, or he would do it partially, after having deceived another, and so on." , says one of those affected, who prefers to remain anonymous.

Another victim relates: “He asked me for 10,000 euros.

When we went to open the account with his friend, who was the director of Banco Sabadell, the loan was for 20,000.

I agreed because he was a friend of his, but somehow he managed to access that account and made transactions and collected cash from his secretary's mobile ”.

This affected person also prefers not to give his name and assures that he is now obliged to fight with the help of his lawyer to prove that he never used that account.

"Suddenly, they called me from the branch to tell me that they were closing the account and that I owed more than 23,000 euros," he says.

"I told him, of course I told Antonio [Caba], but he has always given me long," he says, referring to the claims he made to the commercial.

More information

The bones found in a well in Manzanares belong to the businessman Juan Manuel Isla, who disappeared in July

The businessman Jesús González, 54 years old and disappeared since June 19, 2019 after an alleged intermediation by Caba for the sale of some vehicles, signed two promissory notes for 14,000 euros each, supposedly for the sale of the cars, and two loans of 10,000 and 14,000 euros, which expired in May and June 2019 respectively.

“In a matter of months they became close, he went on a trip with him to Paraguay, where Jesús had some farms and where he brought his cars, his great fans;

They went everywhere together, to eat, to the Padel Club…”, says a relative of the still missing.

In Caba's statement to the Civil Guard after the disappearance of Jesús González, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the commission agent assures that on June 19 he ate with González at the Viri Viri restaurant.

Then, around 6:30 p.m., they met with his friend Antonio Fernández Menchén to proceed with the purchase of the car in the González industrial warehouse.

Curiously, the person who bought the Mercedes was Caba and not Menchén, according to the documents.

Supposedly, because the latter had no money and had to sell his car first in order to pay.

It is not understood why the promissory notes were still in González's house if they supposedly paid him the money in cash.

In addition, the woman who at that time was González's girlfriend assures that he called her that day from a farm in Antonio Caba, at 2:40 p.m.

and told him that "they were waiting for the buyer of the car."

The last connection of Jesús González's WhatsApp "is from that day, at 2:56 p.m.," she assured.

However, a good part of the interrogation of the investigators of the Ciudad Real Civil Guard command surprisingly deals with the trip that Caba and González made to Paraguay.

In his story, Caba portrays González, co-owner of a gaming machine company with his brother, as a man with financial problems, who got along very badly with his partner (and brother) and creates suspicion around his family circle. for alleged problems of inheritance, property and even for women.

The family of the disappeared person has completely denied it and has been trying to get the case fully investigated for more than three years, according to his lawyer.

"It has not been investigated, if it had been done, perhaps Isla would be alive today," they warn.

Among those allegedly cheated by Caba, there are other businessmen from the municipality, who would have lent him tens of thousands of euros, some of whom have preferred not to make statements after being consulted.

There is even a high command of the Manzanares Civil Guard, who apparently lent him, in the form of promissory notes, more than 50,000 euros.

In the wake of debts, promissory notes, checks, loans, bank accounts, and a frenetic pace of creation of all kinds of companies ("industrial maintenance", "financial services", "rental and management of real estate, "exploitation of rustic farms ”, “business projects”…) that persecutes Antonio Caba, add three disappearances of people with whom he had a business in hand.

Juan Miguel Isla, whose body was found on Tuesday at the bottom of a well, on a farm owned by Caba, although it was put in the name of his friend Gaspar Rivera, over 70 years old and now also detained.

Jesús González, who is still missing without the investigation having prospered, but whose case, in light of the police investigations, follows a pattern very similar to that of Isla. And Miguel,

a man whom the town remembers as "a close friend of Antonio's", "who had an agency", and whose body was found "in 2009 in another well, with his feet tied and a stone tied to his belly".

However, the case was filed as a suicide, according to sources from the Civil Guard.

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