Missing man arrested in Spain on suspicion of faking his own death
Friday, August 14, 2009 @ 11:51 AM
The only trace police divers found of businessman Jenaro Jiménez Hernández was a single size 11 flipper. For more than a year, his family were convinced he had died in an accident while spearfishing off Spain's Atlantic coast.
But rumours in the Andalucian city of Cádiz persisted that Jiménez had faked his own death and fled abroad to escape heavy debts. Early yesterday morning, 16 months after he disappeared, the gossip was proved correct: Jiménez, 42, was arrested in Madrid on suspicion of fraud after stepping off a plane from São Paulo, Brazil.
Much to the shock of his wife, Anabel, who was eight months pregnant when her husband went missing, police believe he had been hiding in Paraguay all the time. Jiménez was last seen leaving his home at 7am on Sunday 13 April last year to go fishing off Los Alemanes beach, near Tarifa, on the Costa de la Luz.
When he failed to return that afternoon, his wife called the civil guard who found his BMW car abandoned by the coast. His wallet with ID was inside the vehicle, but his scuba suit and fishing gear were missing. A four-day search by land, sea and helicopter failed to find any sign of the businessman, apart from the flipper, discovered by a police diver. Moroccan authorities were contacted in case a body washed up on their shores.
His disappearance left the couple's young son fatherless, and a month later Anabel gave birth to a baby daughter.
But in a case echoing that of John Darwin, the British canoeist who had faked his own death, detectives were not entirely convinced there had been an accident.
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