A JAW-DROPPING Google Street View image has led to murder arrests after cops discovered butchered human remains.
The shocking picture shows a man stuffing a large plastic bag thought to contain the victim’s body into the boot of a car.
The Google Street View image appears to show a man stuffing a large plastic bag thought to contain a body[/caption]
A view of cops searching for the missing body[/caption]
Cops admitted the image was one of the clues they worked with to ‘resolve the crime’[/caption]
A couple have been arrested on suspicion of murder after cops probing a mystery disappearance came across the picture – and also found human remains.
The detainees are the wife of the Cuban man whose remains were discovered last week in a Spanish cemetery more than a year after he vanished and her former lover.
The Google image and court-ordered phone taps have been described as “decisive” by local press covering the gruesome find in the tiny village of Andaluz in the northern Spanish province of Soria.
Cops admitted yesterday the sinister image was one of the clues they worked with to “resolve the crime.”
Central government officials for the region have already said they believe the human torso found belongs to that of a 33-year-old Cuban man who went missing last November.
The Google Street View image, which is still online, shows a man in blue jeans and a jacket putting a large white plastic bin bag believed to contain the dead man’s body in the boot of a car.
The body is bundled into a red Rover car in broad daylight.
Local reports point to the victim being killed after flying to Spain and discovering his Cuban wife had been cheating on him with a man described as the second person being held in custody.
The male suspect is a Spanish bar owner said to be nicknamed ‘The Wolf of Tayueco’ after the small village of just 56 inhabitants a 15-minute drive from the cemetery where the Google pic was taken.
In their first comments about the investigation and arrests overnight, a spokesman for Spain’s National Police said: “National Police officers have detained two people allegedly involved in the disappearance and death of a man who was reported missing in November last year by a relative.
“That relative had grown suspicious about messages he had received purporting to be from the missing man.
“Part of the victim’s remains have been found buried in a cemetery in Andaluz in Soria using ‘advanced techniques.’
“One of the clues investigators were working with were images from an online search location application.”
The force added in a statement: “The messages the missing man’s family received said he met a girl and was leaving Soria and getting rid of his telephone.
“This made the relative suspect someone else was sending the messages and that led to him alerting police.
“The police investigation focused on the missing man’s closest circle and led to the arrest of the two suspects believed to be responsible for his disappearance on November 12.
“They were the missing man’s partner and a man who had been her partner.
“They were initially held on suspicion of unlawful detention for failing to explain his disappearance.
A close-up of the Google Street View image[/caption]
The investigation is ongoing[/caption]
“Searches of the pair’s homes and vehicles were subsequently authorised by police, where evidence relevant to the investigation was uncovered.”
The force also said that the image “was an additional piece of evidence” and that “both suspects have been remanded in prison by an investigating judge.”
The spokesperson said: “The discovery of human remains buried underground in the cemetery in the province of Soria occurred on December 11 after they were sent to jail.
“Those remains have yet to be fully identified by coroners but we believe they correspond to those of the missing man.
“The investigation is ongoing.”
This isn’t the first time criminal activity has been caught through Google Maps.
Italian mafia fugitive Gioacchino Gammino was caught after 20 years on the run with the help of Google Maps.
Italian police had a breakthrough when they came across an online image showing an elderly man outside a grocery shop in the town of Galapagar north of Madrid.
Gammino, 60, had changed his name to Manuel.
The store he was snapped outside on the Google Maps’ Street View feature was named El Huerto de Manu – Manu’s Garden.
In 2010, three brazen heroin dealers were caught slinging dope on a street corner in Brooklyn, New York, when a Google Street View car rolled by.
Shaundell Dade, Jamel Pringle and Jonathan Paulino were all snapped in front of a well-known dealing site.
One of the angles even shows the blokes yelling at the mapping car.
They were rounded up along with four others in an undercover NYPD sting operation shortly after.
A view of cops searching for the missing body[/caption]