Missing businessman Jesús Tavira found dead in Alicante

The body of businessman Jesús Tavira, missing since March 18th in Alicante, has been recovered at a residence in the Bacarot neighbourhood of Alicante. The find was made yesterday afternoon, Tuesday April 28th, and it appears he was buried under a concrete slab in a house, in a kind of cesspool. The residence was occupied by a family of North African ancestry whose father worked for the merchant. Police detained Tavira’s employee, his wife and a third person.

The name of Tavira came to the fore after the shooting death in 2016 of María del Carmen Martínez, widow of Vicente Sala, former head of the now-defunct Caja Mediterráneo (CAM) bank. In the Sala case, it was recorded that Tavira had more than 200 communications with the primary suspect Miguel López, the victim’s son-in-law, in the days prior to the murder. Lopez was put on trial and acquitted by a jury. The National Police questioned him multiple times but no link to the crime was uncovered. The two apparently have been in business for years buying and selling autos for junk. At the time, Miguel López was manager of Novocar, the dealership where the murder took place, while Tavira ran a vehicle disassembly yard.

The disappearance of Tavira was announced on March 23rd, when it was reported that the National Police in Alicante were investigating the disappearance of the 63-year-old owner of a scrap yard in the city, whose car had been found burnt two days earlier in the Mil Viviendas neighbourhood. At the time, the Adonay platform posted on social media that Tavira was 1.80 metres tall, stocky, with brown eyes and was last seen wearing a brown jacket, a white t-shirt and blue trainers.