The body of 50-year-old Ricardo Claro – missing since his abduction on Friday March 13 – has been discovered today, in an area of scrubland in Esteval, Loulé.
According to reports, there is no doubt as to the identity of the body – but forensic examination must now follow, including an autopsy to determine cause of death.
Tânia Laranjo, reporting for CMTV, refers to “an extremely violent death” that almost certainly occurred shortly after Claro’s abduction, supposedly by two Brazilians who have already left Portugal, by plane, for their native country.
A third Brazilian involved in this horrific case is in preventive custody. He has been named as ‘Rogério’, 39, an employee/ former employee at the Well restaurant that Claro managed in Vale do Lobo – and apparently a former lover of the dead man.
The reasons for Claro’s abduction have not yet been fully explained, but his attackers used his bank cards to withdraw large sums of money and make purchases. Several thousand euros were also missing from the safe of the Well restaurant, for which Claro had the access codes – thus it seems likely that he was forced to reveal the codes before his death. Certainly, police are treating the motive for this crime as robbery. The attackers were well aware that Ricardo Claro had money, and the access to money.
At the court hearing that remanded him in preventive custody, Rogério claimed to ‘know nothing’ about the crime, or what had happened to his former friend, stressing that he had simply given information, in order to be left with possession of Claro’s Peugeot 2008 car. That in itself suggests he will have known the intended outcome of the abduction.
Speaking on CMTV this lunchtime, Tânia Laranjo describes the scrubland area in Esteval as being very near to where the Well Restaurant is located.
The understanding is that Claro will have been murdered shortly after his attackers got their hands on the money from the restaurant safe.
Updates may come later this afternoon, but for now, the body has been removed for autopsy, and forensic experts will be analysing the area where it was found.
