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The voice of the
fugitive Carlos Garrido Delgado
sounds on the other end of the phone this past Monday morning.
He calls from hidden number.
On him weighs a European arrest warrant issued by the Court of Instruction 3 of Alicante.
«I am neither a dangerous criminal nor the head of any organized gang
», He says a few seconds after starting the conversation with this journalist.
«I plan to go to court accompanied by my lawyer, but I am not going to appear before the Civil Guard.
I don't need to spend 72 hours in a dungeon for something
I'm not responsible for
».
The Civil Guard thinks that Carlos Garrido, a 40-year-old from Seville, could have fled to Portugal after allegedly orchestrating the kidnapping of a Russian citizen and his wife, both living in Alicante, in order to obtain the passwords to their account accounts.
cryptocurrencies.
The Local Police of El Campello, a municipality in Alicante, found the woman tied up with ties inside a car, at the end of last spring.
She was wearing a light dress and sandals tied around her ankle.
Alla B. of Russian origin, shows her clamped hands after being rescued by police officers last June. CHRONICLE
A few days after the release of this woman, Carlos Garrido became a fugitive from justice.
According to investigators, he would have ordered the kidnapping of both people.
The fugitive defends himself when he talks to
Crónica
.
"I did not order any kidnapping.
I hired a detective who, in turn, contacted several people to help me get my money back.
The Russian owes me two million euros.
To me and to the group of investors behind me and to whom I owe myself.
His wife has nothing to do with this.
She just wanted him to understand that she has to pay.
It is not my responsibility how those people acted towards him and his wife ».
THE FAKE COPS AND THE EX CIVIL GUARD DETECTIVE
Alla B. and Pavel S. arrived at their house in Alicante around 6:20 p.m.
on June 19, 2022
from Barcelona, where they had been traveling.
As they later denounced, when they left the garage where they kept their car, they met three men and a woman (she was also of Russian origin).
Two of those three men,
"plate in hand"
, identified themselves as police officers, according to the police report.
One of those two agents, who would turn out to be false, held a pistol.
The alleged assailants stripped the couple of all their belongings, tied them up with plastic ties and put them in the car in which they were traveling.
At that time, they would have been told that if neither they nor their cat wanted to die, they had to give them the password to their bitcoin wallet,
a virtual currency.
Pavel S., with the aim of "gaining time", explained to the alleged kidnappers that he had divided the password into twelve parts and that
"each of them"
had it in a different place.
He first asked them to take him to a friend's house in El Campello, where he had one of those fractions.
Upon arriving at the property, the captors allowed him to go up to the house alone so as not to raise suspicions in his friend.
But, seeing the woman, Pavel S. told what was happening and asked her to call his lawyer.
During his time in that house, Pavel S. received a call from the people who were holding his partner.
They were worried that it was taking too long.
When going back down to the street, the vehicle of the presumed kidnappers was no longer there.
A few minutes later, Pavel S.'s friend answered a call from the Police.
Her lawyer had alerted the police forces.
Shortly after, the Local Police of El Campello stopped the car in which the Russian woman was handcuffed.
The Civil Guard arrested six people who are still in prison today: a detective who had been a civil guard, the two false policemen, the woman of Russian origin -who said she had been hired as a translator- and two other people who They would have participated in the organization of the kidnapping.
Carlos Garrido appeared at the Alicante Civil Guard headquarters to take an interest, mainly, in that Russian translator.
The agents told him that he should report back if required
.
But when they called him hours later
as a witness
, Garrido decided not to go.
Since the beginning of summer,
a European search and capture order has weighed on him.
When he calls this reporter, the fugitive explains that the day he appeared before the Civil Guard he handed over his ID and indicated where he was staying, but that in the following hours he saw in the press that a kidnapping had been committed in Alicante.
He also found out about the arrest of the alleged Russian translator.
«I thought that the best thing was not to present myself alone at the command.
I wanted to do it in court with my lawyer
», He tells.
Vehicle in which the Russian woman kidnapped in Alicante circulated in June 2022.EFE
Since then, this fugitive assures that his lawyer has tried to appear in the proceedings as his legal representative, but that the court has prevented him from doing so.
«My lawyer also asked to be able to appear in court to testify, not in the Civil Guard.
They rejected it again », he assures.
Carlos Garrido's defense came to request,
five days after the kidnapping
, that his client declare that he was under investigation, the case being under summary secrecy.
He also did not receive a response from the court.
The lawyer presented an appeal in October that has been accepted.
Now he is waiting for an answer, for him to be allowed to appear in the case and for his client to appear in court.
«When I provide documentation and give my version of what happened,
everything will change.
I am not responsible for the behavior of others.
The detective is a former civil guard and the Russian woman arrested is a pianist whom I hired as a translator just for that meeting.
I didn't even know the fake policemen.
He wanted Pavel, who was just dragging his feet, to understand that he has to pay, nothing more
».
The fugitive assures that for four years he has been an expert in blockchain technology and that he teaches investment courses in cryptocurrencies.
He says that his relationship with Pavel S. is limited to the debt that a group of investors made in an application that he helped them launch.
The debt that he would have contracted with him would amount to two million euros.
"Now I regret not having been at that meeting," says the fugitive.
«Everything would be very different.
I hired the detective that same week.
I met the translator a couple of days before her kidnapping.
Is there really a criminal organization in all this?
I don't lead any band.
I have no criminal record.
I haven't seen my daughters for five months and now I find that the Civil Guard has requested citizen collaboration to find me for being a dangerous kidnapper.
It sounds like a joke
».
- Why do you think you are located in Portugal?
- I have a house in Ayamonte (Huelva),
right on the border with Portugal.
They will think that I move between both countries, but it is not so.
The Civil Guard has been there and has asked my wife about me.
She let them in even though she couldn't because they didn't have a signed warrant from the courthouse.
- When do you plan to turn yourself in to justice?
- As soon as the court summons me and my lawyer can assist me.
It is a right that I have.
I do not plan to go through a command.
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