Police have arrested two men suspected of committing violent crimes in Faro and Loulé, inlcuding kidnap, attempted murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated threat.
The Judicial Police (PJ), in collaboration with the PSP Command of Faro, arrested two individuals, men, aged 22 and 27, for “committing a total of three attempted murder crimes, two kidnapping crimes, three aggravated robbery crimes, one crime of possession of a prohibited weapon and one crime of aggravated threat, which occurred in Faro and Loulé, between June and August of this year, in an escalation of extreme violence, which ended up generating a feeling of unrest among the population”.
According to the PJ statement, the crimes in question “will have occurred mostly between elements of the rival groups that those now detained were part of, and which, according to the investigation, will be based on the attempt to control territory for the practice of drug trafficking”.
The escalation of violence began at the “beginning of June, in the city center of Faro, when, during the day, one of the detainees fired shots from a firearm, targeting a member of a rival group, without hitting him”.
“Days later, on July 10th, the detainees kidnapped a man, taking him from his home in Quarteira, Loulé and taking him to a deserted location”, revealed the PJ. In addition to stealing “his personal belongings, they also attacked him with a knife and shot him with a gun. The victim managed to escape, but required medical assistance”.
In August, in the city of Faro, the detainees were “the perpetrators of several incidents involving the use of knives and firearms, which included robberies with death threats and assaults, and whose victims required hospital care”. Two of the situations occurred following “altercations between the two detainees, with one of them also requiring hospital care, including hospitalisation”.
The detainees were brought before the judicial authorities andhave been placed in preventive detention.