Two young lives have now been lost at the hands of gangsters on the Costa del Sol due to cases of mistaken identity.
The latest saw a 20-year-old called Nacho gunned down in the centre of Malaga by three men, reported to be Swedish.
According to Diario Sur, one theory is that they feared he was a hitman sent to kill them, or was a rival and posed a threat.
His heartbroken mother has now demanded tougher action against ‘increasing’ gangland violence on the Costa del Sol, describing her slain son as a ‘good boy’ who ‘loved animals, his mother and his friends.’
It’s not the first time an innocent life has been cut short due to amateur targeting of rivals.
In December 2024, 25-year-old Dutch national Jasin Ajar was sprayed with bullets outside a cannabis club in Fuengirola.
In that case, it emerged that a Belgian teenager had been flown in by mafia bosses to carry out the hit, sparking police to raise the alarm over inexperienced hitmen being hired from abroad.
The cases expose the terrifying consequences of a criminal underworld increasingly reliant on young and disposable assassins, recruited cheaply and sent into unfamiliar cities to carry out killings with little preparation.
‘I haven’t done anything’
Nacho was sitting on a bench near Plaza Virgen del Rocio at around 11.40am last Friday when three men approached him and fired several times.
Despite suffering gunshot wounds to his back and legs, he managed to get up and stagger down a flight of steps towards Calle Macabeos.
He eventually reached the entrance of a nearby DIA supermarket, where he collapsed and desperately asked workers and customers for help.
‘I don’t know why they shot me. I haven’t done anything,’ he reportedly said as witnesses tried to save him.
Paramedics stabilised Nacho at the scene before rushing him to Malaga’s Regional Hospital in a critical condition. Police officers were deployed around the hospital amid initial fears that the gunmen might attempt to finish the job.
But at around 9pm that night, doctors confirmed that he had died from his injuries.
The attack had all the hallmarks of a gangland execution, leading investigators from the Policia Nacional’s drugs and organised crime unit, Udyco, and the Greco Costa del Sol organised-crime squad to take control of the case.
Yet it soon emerged that Nacho had no apparent links to drugs, gangs or any other form of criminal activity.
Investigators now believe the three suspects, described in Spanish reports as Swedish nationals with alleged connections to organised crime, may have thought Nacho was a rival assassin watching them from the bench.
The men had reportedly been living in the same area and may have interpreted his repeated presence in the square as surveillance.
Believing he was preparing to attack them, the suspects allegedly decided to shoot first.
The hypothesis remains under investigation and the case is subject to secrecy, but police sources have confirmed that Nacho was not linked to drug trafficking or a criminal organisation.
All three suspects were captured within hours.
One was intercepted in Malaga’s Capuchinos district, while information obtained after his arrest led officers to a property where a second man was detained.
The third allegedly changed his clothes and altered his appearance before fleeing to Fuengirola. Police tracked him down at around 11pm that night.
A judge has remanded all three in custody without bail while they are investigated for homicide. They declined to testify during their first court appearance.
Teen who killed the wrong man
For detectives on the Costa del Sol, the suspected case of mistaken identity will have an unsettling familiarity.
Shortly before 2am on December 7, 2024, a masked 17-year-old Belgian gunman waited outside a cannabis club in Fuengirola carrying a military-style Tokarev rifle.
CCTV footage later studied by police showed the teenager watching the premises on Calle General Rodrigo before pulling the weapon from a bag as the final customers prepared to leave.
A worker spotted him and slammed the door shut. The teenager fired three rounds through its glass panel, causing the people inside to flee through another exit onto Calle Asturias.
The young gunman pursued the worker, 25-year-old Dutch national Jasin Ajar, and shot him until he collapsed.
As Jasin begged for his life, the assassin allegedly approached and emptied the rest of the magazine into his body and head. A total of 18 shots were fired.
Police found no evidence linking the victim to organised crime. He had travelled to the Costa del Sol during a year away from home and found work at the cannabis club.
Investigators believe the person the teenager had been sent to murder was inside the same premises, but the lookout tasked with identifying the target pointed out the wrong man.
After the shooting, the teenager left the rifle underneath a parked car and fled on a bicycle before taking a taxi to Torremolinos.
He met two alleged accomplices at a 24-hour bar and later went to a hotel, where the group reportedly drank alcohol and celebrated the supposedly successful operation.
The gunman, identified as Shah C., had escaped from a Belgian juvenile detention centre before travelling to Spain.
Police believe several accomplices helped organise the killing, including young Dutch women accused of transporting the rifle from France in a hire car.
The alleged mastermind, barely 20 years old at the time, was suspected of ordering several attacks connected to the so-called Mocro Maffia.
Shah was eventually arrested in Belgium and extradited to Spain. However, he was released after spending the maximum permitted nine months in preventive juvenile detention when no further restrictions were requested.
He disappeared but was recaptured in Belgium this summer under a European arrest warrant issued by the Netherlands, where the case is now expected to be prosecuted.
Cheap and disposable killers
Police have been warning for years that criminal organisations are increasingly recruiting teenagers and inexperienced young men to carry out assassinations on the Costa del Sol.
Rather than paying an established professional €50,000 or €60,000, gangs can reportedly offer a vulnerable teenager no more than €20,000, or sometimes significantly less, to travel to Spain and pull the trigger.
Many are recruited through encrypted messaging services and social media, with the killing broken into separate tasks.
One person supplies a weapon, another books accommodation, a local contact provides transport and a lookout identifies the target. The gunman may arrive knowing little more than a name, photograph or location.
This fragmented system is intended to protect the people who commissioned the murder. But it also leaves crucial decisions in the hands of young recruits with limited experience and little knowledge of their surroundings.
The consequences were seen in Fuengirola, where the wrong employee was allegedly identified and shot 18 times.
Now, in Malaga, another innocent young man appears to have been killed because frightened alleged gangsters mistook someone sitting near his own home for an assassin.
Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.
