Two bodies found buried six feet under concrete in an industrial estate in southern Spain last night are believed to be those of missing Dublin drug dealers Shane Coates (31) and Stephen Sugg (27), writes Conor Lally.
The bodies of the men, who were the leaders of the notorious Blanchardstown-based Westies drugs gang, were found dumped in a laneway between rented warehouses in Catral, around 30 miles south of the Alicante region on the A7 motorway to Murcia.
Those who killed them had gone to extreme lengths to conceal their bodies. They had dug up a section of concrete, dug a six-foot grave, dumped the men's remains in it and then covered the grave again with concrete.
However, members of the gang who killed them told other Irish criminals about the double murder. Within a short period, the Garda's crime and security branch picked up this intelligence through sources in Dublin.
They first shared the information with the Spanish authorities almost two years ago. Detectives from west Dublin and the Garda National Drug Unit have made a number of trips to Spain in the last two years to work with the authorities there on the case.
This contact has intensified in recent months, and the intelligence gathered in Dublin was found to be of such high quality that it led gardaí and the Spanish authorities to the exact location of the grave.
A small team of gardaí, led by Det Chief Supt Cormac Gordon of the Garda National Drug Unit, left for Spain at the weekend. An excavation of the site was begun by Spanish police yesterday morning, and the bodies were found at around 5pm Irish time. The bodies were still at the scene last night.
Security sources in Ireland and Spain said both bodies, which were clothed, were badly decomposed. The men were killed shortly after being abducted from their apartment 2½ years ago.
On the afternoon of January 31st, 2004, they told their partners they were going out for an hour. The men left in a car owned by Coates, an English-registered silver Mercedes. They have not been heard from since and the car has not been located.
The Irish and Spanish authorities believe the men were killed by a gang led by a Finglas criminal with whom they had been working in Torreviega, Alicante, in southern Spain. Coates and Sugg began working with this Irish gang in late 2003 or early 2004 after fleeing Ireland with the intention of exporting drugs from Spain into the Republic.
They had both been served with demands from the Criminal Assets Bureau totalling nearly €800,000.
They were regarded by gardaí as the leaders of the most violent and unpredictable gang in Ireland.
Shortly after they disappeared, Coates's brother Christian told The Irish Times that his brother's presumed abduction and murder were not a hoax.
"The both of them are well able to handle themselves. Shane would know immediately what was happening, what the situation was. He would have had the attitude that I'll take my chances here and now."