A bizarre murder that occurred on a Thai island with a Spaniard as the protagonist: Daniel Sancho, son of actor Rodolfo Sancho, would have killed a Colombian surgeon and dismembered his body, the remains of which he later threw into a garbage dump in various black bags and other parts into the sea.
Both were spending the summer together in Koh Phangan, a tourist island in the southeast of Thailand that is very crowded these days for its famous full moon party. Daniel Sancho (29 years old) went to the police station on Thursday to report that the victim, Edwin Arrieta Arteaga, 44, a prestigious plastic surgeon with a clinic in Montería, in northern Colombia, had disappeared. That day, the agents who took his statement highlighted the marks of various cuts and scratches that Sancho had on his body.
The Spaniard’s statement came after the news had already reached the media that human remains had been found in a garbage dump on the island. Garbage collectors discovered a severed pelvis and intestines inside a sack of fertilizer. More body parts were found in a black plastic bag at the same location on Friday, containing two legs, a black T-shirt, a pair of shorts and a pair of underpants.
According to the Thai newspaper Bangkok Post, Sancho initially denied any participation, but finally, after the agents pressured him during the interrogation, he would have confessed to the crime. “He admitted it,” the city’s police chief, Panya Niratimanon, also told AFP.
According to what was narrated by the investigators of the case, Sancho would have explained that he took Arrieta to his room and that the man wanted to have sex, but that he refused. Then, in a fit of rage, he struck him, causing the victim to fall to the ground and lose consciousness after another hit to the head with a bathtub.
Later, always according to the same sources, Sancho “cut the body into 14 pieces” and put some parts in several bags that he threw into the garbage can. Other remains were put inside a travel bag that he threw into the sea from Salad beach, near his hotel.
After disposing of the remains, the police point out that Sancho went to the full moon party accompanied by two women, and that it was at the end of the event that he went to the police station to report Arrieta’s disappearance.
Regarding the development of the event, the investigators have pointed out that they believe it could have been premeditated because Sancho would have bought a knife, rubber gloves, a kitchen sponge, a bottle of cleaning product and garbage bags a day before the disappearance of the Colombian .
Provincial Police Commissioner Pol Lt Gen said on Saturday officers had found what are believed to be more parts of a human body after searching a hotel room where investigation suggests was the scene of the crime. . According to the Thai authorities, Sancho and Arrieta had agreed to meet on the island, where they had a hotel reservation from July 31 to August 3. In the room, forensic officers collected samples of hair, grease and tissue from the drain. The results will be known on Sunday.
Pol Lt Gen added that the relatives of the Colombian surgeon have told the investigators that the man had a relationship for more than a year with Sancho and that both had arranged to meet in Thailand to attend the full moon party, where the beaches They are full of DJs who play music until dawn.
“A police examination of security video from various locations on the island makes it clear that Sancho was the last person seen with the victim before the human body parts were found,” the commissioner said. “We still don’t know the motive for the murder. Initially we believe it could be due to a jealous rage.”
Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, who remains in the custody of the authorities as the main suspect, works as a chef in a well-known catering service in Madrid called La Bohéme, and also has a cooking channel on YouTube.
Daniel was born when Rodolfo Sancho (48) was 19 years old as a result of his marriage to Silvia Bronchalo, whom he met when they were both studying acting. He is the firstborn of the actor, who also has a daughter named Jimena, born in 2015, along with the actress Xenia Tostado.
The Spanish Embassy in Bangkok (Thailand) is already providing consular assistance to Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed.
The consular assistance that Spain provides abroad in the event that a national is detained consists, among other things, of providing a list of local lawyers and a visit by a consular official, provided that the interested party authorizes it, at least once. once every six months, reports Efe.
In some cases, financial aid may be granted and extradition facilitated to serve the sentence in Spain if there is an agreement to this effect with the country where the crime was committed.
In general, the consular offices monitor each case individually, and may also provide assistance, for example, by notifying their relatives of the arrest, if the detainee so wishes; deliver and receive messages and correspondence, or help with other paperwork.
If we look back a few years, this event is reminiscent of the case of another Spaniard, Artur Segarra, who in 2016 became the most wanted man in Thailand for kidnapping, torturing, suffocating and dismembering a consultant from Lleida and throwing his remains into the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok.
Segarra was later arrested in Cambodia and handed over to Thai authorities. In 2017, the Spaniard was sentenced to death. But three years ago, the King of Thailand commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
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