The Mossos d’Esquadra arrested two men on Wednesday accused of participating, along with two or three others, in the violent assault on a home in the Eixample where they held a young Egyptian content creator, passing through Barcelona. The rest of the gang fled through the inner courtyards, while several neighbors alerted 112 and recorded the scene.
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The victim is a social media influencer with an audience among the Arab public. He was staying in an Airbnb on Aribau street. Around five in the afternoon, the young man was scheduled to meet at the apartment with a friend, a resident of Luxembourg on vacation in Spain. At the moment both entered the home, the group of assailants, who were already waiting for them, attacked.
The assailants sent images of the detained victim to family and friends demanding money for his release
The victim was stripped, assaulted, and recorded on video. They used these images to demand money and jewelry from family and friends. In fact, one of them, upon learning what was happening, ran to the Mossos de Ciutat Vella police station to report that a friend of his had been kidnapped. That he was being assaulted and that the kidnappers were asking for money for his release. Another acquaintance of the victim, who works at El Prat airport, also received the kidnapping images and the money request.
While the Mossos de Ciutat Vella tried to piece together the story of the man who arrived at the station upset, another friend of the influencer approached the home. He heard suspicious noises, saw shadows through the windows that he didn’t like, and started shouting that he was police. He heard his friend asking for help and ran to the street where he stopped a Mossos patrol running.
At the first shouts of “police” the kidnappers fled through the inner courtyard. Before, they locked the door and took the keys. One fell from a height of one and a half meters and injured his ankle. So badly that he could no longer move. One of the accomplices decided not to leave him and stayed with him. The rest managed to escape after reaching a building on Còrsega street. They took money, luxury clothing, and jewelry from the home, as well as valuable music equipment and the victim’s phone.
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All this happened while half the world was preparing to survive the eclipse. Several neighbors of that communal courtyard in the Eixample, alerted by the screams, recorded with their phones the assailants jumping through the courtyards. They thought they were men in black trying to rob or occupy some empty apartment. Some wore balaclavas and others had face masks.
The Mossos arrested Joel S. C., who decided not to leave the one who broke his ankle, Christofer S. S. The latter was taken by ambulance to the Clínic hospital, where he remained hospitalized yesterday, under police custody, after emergency surgery for the fall injuries.
When the victim’s friend learned through a third person that the influencer had been released, he ran out of the police station, shouting that he had been freed and that he had to leave. It was later that the police connected that strange visit with the Eixample incident.
The Barcelona violent robbery group has taken over the investigation. Only two neighbors live in the Aribau building; the rest of the property consists of tourist apartments.
