A 29-year-old British man has been shot dead in a chilling killing inside a luxury urbanisation on Spain’s Orihuela Costa — as police probe a possible drugs-linked gang war involving armed British and Irish criminals.
The victim was found riddled with bullets inside a home in Orihuela Costa, in the Campoamor area, on December 21, but the killing has only now come to light. Spain’s Civil Guard has launched a top-level homicide investigation, which has been placed under judicial secrecy, and no arrests have yet been made.
Elite detectives from the Alicante Judicial Police Homicide Unit are leading the inquiry amid growing fears the murder is connected to an earlier shooting just ten days before, when another British man narrowly escaped death.
That earlier victim, a 32-year-old Briton, was ambushed in the underground garage of his home in Orihuela Costa. Gunmen fired ten shots at his car, smashing the windscreen. He was hit by three bullets but survived. Investigators believe he was the leader of an armed British gang allegedly extorting cannabis clubs across the Vega Baja region to seize control and profits.
Body Found in Pool of Blood
The dead man was discovered after Local Police were alerted by friends who feared “something serious” had happened at a house in Lomas de Cabo Roig. Officers found the young man’s body lying in a pool of blood and immediately called in the Civil Guard.
Crime scene experts and forensic specialists were rushed to the property, and a judge authorised the removal of the body to the Alicante Institute of Legal Medicine, where an autopsy confirmed the victim had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. The exact number of bullets has not been disclosed.
Drug Score-Settling Feared
Investigators believe the killing may be a drug-related score-settling, the same motive suspected in the earlier attempted murder. Police are now working to establish whether the same gunmen were behind both attacks.
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The probe has widened to include British and Irish organised crime figures operating in the Vega Baja, many of whom are already known to Spanish police.
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Adding to the grim backdrop, just days earlier a Northern Irishman accused of murder walked free on €100,000 bail, while his wife was later arrested alongside two armed men found with loaded pistols in a car.
Police are urgently investigating whether these armed suspects — and other known gang members — are linked to the Campoamor execution, as fears grow of an escalating underworld feud on the Costa Blanca.
