Gangs preying on British tourists in Colombia by befriending them on Tinder or Grindr before drugging them with 'Devil Breath' truth serum to kidnap and rob them
Devil's Breath, also known as scopolamine and burundanga, was previously used as a truth serum by the CIA and comes from the seeds of the Borrachero tree in South America.
Now, feared mobsters are using it to drug unsuspecting tourists after ensnaring them with honey trap schemes through dating apps like Tinder and Grindr.
Hundreds of people in Colombia are thought to have been targeted with the drug.
Colombian police reportedly fear London-based scientist Alessandro Coatti, 38, may have died after being targeted this way.
The molecular biologist was staying at a hostel in the scenic historic centre of the coastal city of Santa Marta while on holiday last month.
Victims of the Devil's Breath can be paralysed and go into a 'zombie' stupor if they ingest as little as 10mg of the drug.
It also makes them susceptible to following commands - and, after up to an hour of hallucinations and delirium, they could lose control of their body and even die.
Colombian detectives fear Mr Coatti may have gone to an abandoned house in the southern San José del Pando area of the city after connecting with someone on Grindr, The Daily Telegraph reported.
His remains were reportedly discovered by a group of children and he was said to have been identified by a hotel wristband.
Mr Coatti had worked at the Royal Society of Biology since April 2017 - first as a science policy officer and for the past six years as a senior science policy officer.
Before joining the professional association, created to advance the interests of biology in academia, industry, education and research, the Italian-born scientist had been a post-graduate neuroscience researcher at University College London.
He was among Royal Society of Biology representatives who appeared before Parliament, in June 2022, to discuss the future regulation of UK genetic technologies.
The drug is thought to have been used before in honey trap schemes in Colombia.
Video showed the man carrying a paper bag and keying in the code for the entrance door's security lock.
One of the women, dressed in a black bodysuit, looked forward while her accomplice, wearing a similar pink outfit, turned around and looked towards a group of people that were standing near their motorcycles.
The individual then opened the door as the suspects followed him into the home - where the alleged robbery took place.
Once inside, the women allegedly drugged the man with powdered scopolamine, otherwise known as the 'Devil's Breath,' which causes a person to become disoriented.
The women fled with the victim's money, jewelry and cell phone.
According to Medellín authorities, at least 254 people were robbed in 2023 by criminals who exposed them to powdered scopolamine.
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The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
Chilean investigators close in on the notorious Venezuelan gang targeted by Trump
The Venezuelan gang members wrote out even their most minute purchases in blue pen: $15 for a drug trafficker's Uber; $9 for instant coffee during a lookout shift; $34 for supplies to clean what investigators learned were torture chambers. The meticulous spreadsheets seized during police raids in Chile's northern town of Arica, and shared with The Associated Press, suggest the accounting structure of a multinational. They amount to the most comprehensive documentation to date of the inner workings of Tren de Aragua, Latin America's notorious criminal organization designated by President Donald Trump as a foreign terrorist group. An investigation built over years by Chilean prosecutors in Arica, which resulted in hefty sentences for 34 people in March — and inspired other cases which, earlier this month, sent a dozen Tren de Aragua leaders to prison for a total of 300 years — contrasts with Trump's mass deportations of suspected gang members. While Trump's supporters cheer the expulsions, investigators see missed opportunities to gather evidence aimed at uprooting the criminal network that has gained momentum across the region as migration from Venezuela surges and global cocaine demand spreads. 'With the U.S. snatching guys off the streets, they're taking out the tip of the iceberg," said Daniel Brunner, president of Brunner Sierra Group security firm and a former FBI agent. 'They're not looking at how the group operates.' Transnational mafias have fueled an extraordinary crime wave in once-peaceful nations like Chile and consolidated power in countries like Honduras and Peru, infiltrating state bureaucracies, crippling the capacities of law enforcement and jeopardizing regional stability. The new developments are testing democracies across Latin America. 'This is not your typical corruption involving cash in envelopes,' said former Peruvian Interior Minister Ruben Vargas of the impunity in his country. 'It's having criminal operators wield power in the political system.' Chile, long considered one of Latin America's safest and wealthiest nations, is also among its least corrupt, according to watchdog Transparency International, giving authorities an edge in fending off this kind of organized crime. But with no experience, the country was caught unprepared as abductions, dismemberments and other grisly crimes reshaped society. Now, three years later, experts hold out Arica as a case study in wider efforts to combat the gang. While some see El Salvador President Nayib Bukele'scrackdown on criminal gangs as a model, critics see an authoritarian police state that has run roughshod over due process. 'Criminal prosecution, financial intelligence, witness protection and cooperation with other countries, that's what it takes to disrupt criminal networks,' said Pablo Zeballos, a Chilean security consultant and former intelligence officer. Using Tren de Aragua documents first recovered in 2022, Chilean prosecutor Bruno Hernández and his unit brought an unprecedented number of gang members to trial last year, dismantling the gang's northern Chile offshoot, known as Los Gallegos. 'It marked a milestone,' prosecutor Mario Carrera said last month from Arica's shantytown of Cerro Chuño, a Los Gallegos stronghold. 'Until then, they were acting with impunity." Following migrants to 'virgin territory' Tren de Aragua slipped into northern Chile in 2021, after the pandemic shut borders and encouraged Venezuelans to turn to smugglers as they fled their nations' crises and headed to Peru, Colombia and Chile. Héctor Guerrero Flores — a Tren de Aragua leader nicknamed 'Niño Guerrero' — dispatched managers to take over networks of 'coyotes' shepherding human cargo across Chile's desert borders. 'It was virgin territory from their perspective,' said Ronna Rísquez, the author of a book about the group. Tren de Aragua put down roots in Cerro Chuño, a former toxic waste dump outside Arica where Venezuelan migrants squeeze into boxlike homes. Residents said gangsters extracted 'protection' fees from shop owners and unleashed violence on those who wouldn't pay. 'We live in fear of them," said 38-year-old Saida Huanca, recalling how Los Gallegos extorted her minimarket colleague and sent a knife-wielding man to collect road tolls. "I didn't leave the house.' The gang terrorized competitors and turncoats. Court documents describe members tying up defectors and filming as they administered shocks and slashed fingers in clandestine torture chambers. Intercepted calls from March 2022, obtained by AP, show a rival panicking about Tren de Aragua's arrival. 'Where am I supposed to run, dude?' Chilean kingpin Marco Iguazo can be heard asking. Bodies were found, shot or dismembered and stuffed into suitcases. Many were buried alive under cement. 'It was total psychosis,' said Carrera, who reported Arica homicides surging 215% from 2019 to 2022. Cloud emojis and Christmas bonuses Last month at Arica's investigative police headquarters, AP observed Hernández attempt to persuade 23-year-old Wilmer López to talk. The alleged Los Gallegos hitman kept silent, eyes fixed on his Nikes. As a rule, members don't collaborate with investigations. Without testimony last year, Hernández's main recourse was bookkeeping records. They revealed a rigid bureaucracy with centralized leadership that granted local cells autonomy. 'We had to prove not only that they committed crimes, but that there was a structure and pattern," said paralegal Esperanza Amor, on Hernández's team. 'Otherwise they would've been tried as common criminals.' Documents showed migrant smuggling and sex trafficking as the gang's primary source of income. While the per-client price for sex varies by city — $60 in Arica, over $100 in the capital of Santiago — each cell replicated the same structure. The gang confiscated half of women's earnings, then deducted rent and food in a form of debt bondage. Salary spreadsheets showed regional coordinators earning up to $1,200 monthly. Hitmen could earn $1,000 per job, plus protection for relatives in Venezuela. Most operatives received $200 Christmas bonuses. Investigators cross-checked messages among gang members with drone surveillance to decrypt their use of emojis. Some were self-explanatory — a snake signifying a traitor. Others less so: A bone meant debt, a pineapple was a safehouse, a raincloud warned of a raid. Getting to trial With the defendants in custody, the bloodshed abated: Arica's homicide rate plunged from 17 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022 to 9.9 homicides per 100,000 last year. After the team secured 34 convictions on charges including aggravated homicide, human trafficking and sexual exploitation of minors, authorities paid more attention. Similar investigations proliferated nationwide. Carrera traveled to Washington to share intelligence with the FBI. 'The unit did something that had never been done in Chile, and achieved results,' said Ignacio Castillo, director of organized crime at Chile's public prosecutor's office. Other countries have largely struggled to prosecute Tren de Aragua. The Trump administration has used the gang to justify deporting migrants, with some arrested for little more than tattoos. Experts say the Justice Department is too distracted by mass expulsions to conduct thorough investigations. 'Those kind of yearslong investigations are not happening," said Brunner. 'I see the current deportation tactics as working in favor of organized crime." A country traumatized, and transformed The next challenge for Hernández's unit is tracking Los Gallegos as they regroup behind bars. Some Cerro Chuño businesses said they still receive extortion threats — from prison phones. 'Organized crime will always adapt,' Hernández said. 'We need to get ahead." Despite the national homicide rate declining, enthusiasm for a more ruthless approach is spreading as leftist President Gabriel Boric, a former student protest leader, battles for his legacy ahead of November presidential elections. Polls show security as voters' top concern. The current favorite is far-right candidate José Antonio Kast, who draws inspiration from Bukele and Trump. He vows to build a border barrier and deport undocumented migrants 'no matter the cost.' Watching her grandchildren play outside a church in Arica, Maria Peña Gonzalez, 70, said Kast had her vote. 'You can't walk at night like you could before,' she said. 'Chile has changed since different types of people started arriving.'
The Sun
18 hours ago
- The Sun
Paedo kidnapped me & kept me prisoner for months – I was tied to a bed, beaten & raped until tip-off saved me
AGED 13, Jessyca Mullenberg was abducted by a man who had been secretly abusing her for years. Now, 30 years after a TV show led to her rescue from his evil clutches, Jessyca, 43, reveals what happened during her months in captivity – and the lasting impact of her ordeal. 6 6 6 Waking up, 13-year-old Jessyca Mullenberg looked down and was gripped with fear. 'I realised I was tied to the front seat of the car by brown rope,' she remembers. 'I was terrified.' She'd been abducted by Steven Oliver, a 39-year-old paedophile obsessed with Jessyca and who had been abusing her for years before kidnapping her. Over the next 105 days, Jessyca would be subjected to multiple rapes, beatings and brainwashing. The nightmare would only come to an end when the FBI discovered her whereabouts after a tip-off. Today, 30 years on from finding herself at the centre of a kidnapping story that rocked America, Jessyca is a mum-of-two and a sexual abuse awareness advocate. She has dedicated herself to stopping any child going through what she did. Jessyca was eight years old when unmarried Oliver, then 34, came into her life. He was a neighbour in the small town of Altoona, Wisconsin, where she lived with her mother Monica and stepfather Jake. Oliver worked as a teaching assistant at her school and was the father of one of her classmates, Ryan. 'Oliver would invite me, my brothers and all the neighbourhood kids to his house to play football,' she says. 'Almost immediately, he started grooming me, first by making me sit on his lap.' He would make up a reason why Jessyca was in trouble and would tell her to go and stand in his kitchen, while everyone was still outside. 'In the kitchen, he'd touch my breasts and bottom, and get me to touch him. If I did it wrong, he'd punch me,' she says. Over the coming months, the abuse in the kitchen escalated to forced oral sex and rape. 'I was eight, so I had no idea what he was doing to me,' explains Jessyca. 'He said if I told anyone, he'd kill my brothers and the rest of my family. I was so young that I totally believed him.' In the summer of 1993, after two years of abuse, Jessyca's family moved 100 miles across state because her stepfather had a new job. 'I was so relieved, because I thought the abuse would stop,' she says. But Oliver was determined not to lose his grip on his young victim, so he began renting a trailer with Ryan close to her father's home – her parents had split when she was four and her father lived around 100 miles from Jessyca's new home. 'I stayed with my dad every weekend, and couldn't believe it the first time I visited and saw Oliver. His trailer was right across the road. I felt sick knowing he was so determined not to let me go.' Oliver, still working as a teacher's aide, found a new way to be alone with Jessyca, in order to continue abusing her. 'He told all the parents in my dad's neighbourhood he'd been selected by a publishing company to start a weekly writing workshop for kids. We'd all submit poems and short stories, we even did a play,' recalls Jessyca. 'He'd single us out for one-to-one tuition, and mine was always longer, so the abuse just continued without anyone knowing. I was so scared of him.' In September 1995, when Jessyca was 13 and she'd been going to the 'workshop' for a few months, Oliver told her that one of her short stories had been chosen for publication, and they needed to travel 200 miles for a meeting at the publishing company's office. She says her father agreed to the trip, unaware he was handing his daughter over to her abuser. 'Even with everything that had been going on, I still believed the trip was real. Why would I not? Oliver had even fooled the adults,' she says. They left early in the morning, and Jessyca fell asleep, but when she woke up and discovered she was restrained, she realised there was no meeting – she'd been kidnapped. Oliver used the journey to ensure she memorised their cover story. 'He told me he was my father 'Dave Johnson', and I was his daughter 'Cindy', and we were moving to start over our lives after my brother and mother had died in a car accident.' Oliver repeatedly told her what he'd do to her and her family if she tried to alert anyone to the kidnapping. 'We stopped on a bridge to take a break,' remembers Jessyca. 'He threw a rock over the bridge and told me that what happened to the rock would happen to my lifeless body if I said anything to anyone or tried to get away from him.' After a nine-hour drive, they arrived at Kansas City airport in Missouri, where Oliver forced Jessyca on to a plane to Houston at knifepoint. 'He held a pocket knife to my back and told me that if I screamed or shouted, he would kill me and then kill my family,' says Jessyca. 'He wouldn't have been able to do this today with all the security checks, but back then you could get a ticket under any name and didn't need proof of identity.' Once they landed, Oliver found them a cheap hotel to stay in, and he went about changing Jessyca's appearance so she wouldn't be recognised. 6 6 'He cut my hair short and dyed it from blonde to brunette,' she remembers. 'He also went clothes shopping and came back with lots of baggy clothes, which made me look like a boy.' After two days, they moved to another hotel near Houston airport, and as they checked in, Oliver wasted no time telling staff his cover story about the fatal car accident and that they were a father and daughter down on their luck. The hotel staff took pity and asked if he'd be interested in a vacant position as a painter and decorator for the hotel. Agents kept asking me if I was Jessyca Mullenberg, but by then, that name didn't mean anything to me. Jessyca after being freed Oliver jumped at the opportunity, particularly because the position included free accommodation in a block of old, abandoned rooms that were separate from the rest of the hotel. Jessyca's heart sank as Oliver marched her towards one of the small, windowless rooms. 'I was locked inside day and night, there was no way to escape. We were in a part of the hotel where no one else was staying, so no one would hear me banging on the door or shouting,' she remembers. When Oliver got back at night, he'd rape her, as well as hit her and tie her to the bed. In the first week of her captivity, Jessyca tried to call her home using the phone in the room while Oliver was working, but the calls never connected. 'It was an old rotary phone, and he'd switched all the numbers around, so I just kept dialling wrong numbers. 'I started to believe that my old life was slipping away, and I couldn't even remember my home number,' she says. Oliver tormented Jessyca psychologically, too, repeatedly telling her that her parents had given up searching for her. But in fact, her desperate family had never stopped looking, and when they were told by the FBI that Oliver might have taken her out of the state, they printed thousands of missing person posters that were then attached to trucks travelling nationwide, in the hope someone might recognise her. In the end, it was an episode of prime-time TV show America's Most Wanted that would save Jessyca from Oliver's abuse. The show had featured her abduction earlier that year, but a repeat episode aired on the evening of December 28, 1995. One of the hotel staff was watching at home and recognised Oliver as the maintenance man staying in the hotel with the young girl he claimed was his daughter. The next morning, FBI stormed the hotel room, arrested Oliver and took Jessyca to safety. By that point, Oliver had completely brainwashed her. 'Agents kept asking me if I was Jessyca Mullenberg, but by then, that name didn't mean anything to me.' Dr Darrel Turner is a forensic psychologist who specialises in predatory behaviour and has consulted for the FBI. He says: 'The more an offender can diminish the child's frame of reference of what's normal and what's not, the more impact they will have on the victim and their ability to appreciate what's happening to them.' Darrel adds: 'It's similar to the abductions of Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart, who were also just children when they were removed from their family homes and isolated so that the perpetrators could exploit the power differential that exists and exert their terrible influence. "This and the trauma Jessyca had experienced explains her lack of memory.' After hours of talking and them showing photos of my family, I finally remembered what my real name was. Jessyca after being freed 'After hours of talking and them showing photos of my family, I finally remembered what my real name was,' recalls Jessyca. By the time her mother's plane had touched down in Houston the following afternoon, she was beginning to comprehend just what had happened to her during those 105 days in Oliver's clutches. 'It's pure ecstasy,' said her mother Monica when the pair were reunited at the airport. 'We waited so long for the nightmare to be done. We've waited for the miracle to happen.' Bravely, Jessyca agreed to testify at Oliver's trial in 1996, and gave a graphic account of what had happened to her in the time she'd been kept captive. Oliver was sentenced to 40 years in prison for kidnapping and interstate transportation of a minor for illegal sexual purposes. He's still in jail to this day, aged 68. Unfortunately, Jessyca's trauma didn't end with Oliver's imprisonment, and as well as the mental scars he'd inflicted, there were physical ones. 'In my early 20s, I needed jaw surgery, because he had hit me so hard in the face, so many times, that my bones began to deteriorate, making it very hard to talk or eat, and I was suffering from non-stop headaches every day,' she says. Jessyca also suffers from severe PTSD and experiences flashbacks of her ordeal. 'I have a fear of flying after being forced to board the plane in Kansas City,' she says. 'I also can't stand the smell of cigarettes or coffee, because he constantly smelled of those things.' However, Jessyca's determination not to let Oliver hold any further power over her has been a constant in her life since. She went on to study at college and graduated with a degree in psychology, criminal justice and law enforcement. And then, in 2018, she was given the prestigious Hope Award by the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children. Jessyca is now married to tech manager Curt, 48, and despite fears she may not be able to conceive due to the unrelenting sexual assaults she suffered at the hands of Oliver, she defied the odds and has two children of her own. However, as she explains, being a mum can also bring its own terrors. 'When they were growing up, I was waiting for my five-year-old daughter at the school bus stop, but she never got off and the bus driver didn't see her get on. "I called my husband, panicking, and rushed to the school in tears. "Thankfully, she was at a school event and there had been a misunderstanding about what time she'd be home, but it was a harrowing experience for me.' But Jessyca is determined that Oliver won't take any more from her life than he has already and is passionate about continuing her advocacy work. 'I speak about what I went through to educate people about the signs of abuse, so it can be stopped early and perpetrators can be caught. "I simply won't let Oliver win. I want to devote my life to preventing another little boy or girl from going through the hell that I did.' 6
Daily Mail
19 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The house of horrors where killer butchered couple he befriended online then decapitated and stored their remains in freezer...as neighbour reveals 'chilling' moment he came face to face with killer
Grim photos show the house of horrors where a Colombian porn actor murdered an older couple he was staying with before chopping up their bodies and dumping them on Clifton Suspension Bridge. Civil partners Albert Alfonso, 62, and Paul Longworth, 71, welcomed 35-year-old Yostin Mosquera into their home in Scotts Road, Shepherd's Bush, west London. Tragically, their flat would be transformed into a sinister murder scene as Mosquera hatched a twisted plot to kill both men and desperately cover his tracks on July 8 last year. First, he bludgeoned Mr Longworth to death with a hammer, inflicting blow after blow on the same day he had searched ''where on the head is a knock fatal?' and 'hammer killer'. Chilling photos released by the Met Police show the hammer he used at the scene, as well as the bloodied divan bed where Mosquera hid Mr Longworth's body so that Mr Alfonso - who was at work - would be none the wiser when he returned home. Hours later, Mosquera then stabbed Mr Alfonso to death, knifing him in the torso, face and neck during a recorded sex session at the Scotts Road flat. The jury at Woolwich Crown Court was shown the distressing footage, where Mosquera repeatedly asked his victim 'Do you like it?'. And in a final insult to his victim, the naked murderer danced and sung while his victim bled out on the floor. Mosquera, who was this week convicted of both murders, then brutally decapitated and dismembered the two men, leaving their heads in a chest freezer he had purchased before travelling to Bristol to dump their bodies. Pictures from inside the couple's flat shows the freezer dumped in the middle of the corridor, next to a mirror with a floral design. The grisly deaths were first discovered when the suitcases were found on the iconic bridge at 11.30pm on July 10 last year. One of the suitcases had a tag on it linking them back to an address on Scotts Road where police found the heads in the freezer. It's been more than a year since the couple were murdered in their west London flat. But today, the first floor flat - a stone's throw from the bustling Shepherd's Bush Market - remains virtually untouched with a wilting cactus sat on the windowsill the only sign that someone lived there. Neighbours on the quiet street, where homes sell for nearly half a million pounds, revealed that no one has moved in to the house since as they recalled the 'brutal killing on their doorstep'. Some recalled coming face to face with the would-be murderer, while others were left rocked by the manner of the killings in such a quiet, friendly hub of west London. One neighbour told MailOnline: 'I was really shocked. I used to see Paul all the time. I seen him (Mosquera) once. If I'm being honest I got the shivers. Something in me said I wouldn't like to upset him. 'I picked up something straight away. He stopped and opened the gate for me, let me through. I never seen him before that but I couldn't stop staring. I got the shivers. 'I was shocked when it came out in the papers, I was numb for two hours. It's awful.' The man, who did not want to be named, said he was left feeling 'angry and shocked' that he lived so close to the scene of the double murder. He also questioned Mr Alfonso's desire for 'extreme sex' and pornography, adding: 'You don't know what sort of people it's going to attract. In the end he attracted a murderer from online.' The neighbour, referencing the fact that Mr Alfonso would have sex with other men, added: 'No wonder Paul was always at the pub. I used to see him and the shops and He used to ask me to come for a drink. He'd go at lunchtime.' Mr Longworth would regularly go to The Shepherd & Flock, an Irish pub on the High Street, just a few minutes from his home. Neighbours said that Mr Longworth used to regularly drink at the Shepherd and Flock - a stone's throw from his flat Another neighbour said it is 'such a community' and that 'all the neighbours chat', but they added: 'It's not very nice what he [Mr Alfonso] had in his bedroom. But I guess everyone has skeletons in their closet.' A friend, who like Mr Longworth was Irish, told MailOnline: 'They were really friendly, they were a very happy couple. I knew Paul more so than Albert. 'The last time I saw Paul was probably two weeks beforehand. He'd recently retired. He was planning holidays and things like that. He seemed his normal self. 'I had only just come home from Ireland the day they announced it on the news. I'd seen the police presence and assumed it was a burglary or something. 'It hadn't clicked until they said about the suitcases in Bristol were linked to our street that's when it dawned on me. It was shocking. It's one of those things you expect to see on the news, you never expect it to be on your doorstep. It's awful. 'They were brutally killed. It puts me on edge knowing it happened there. It must be ten times worse for the people who live next to him or above him. The friend, who believes the house has been left empty since, added: 'I'd imagine it would be horrible to move in there. I presume the flat has been cleaned but I don't know.' Neighbours say the 'friendly' community was rocked by the double murder, with one saying: 'I walk through here so many times and I've never ever felt day and night unsafe. I was horrified when I heard about it.' A worker at the nearby care home, just down the road from the flat, said: 'It was scary at the time. It's something you see on the news or in a move not in the place you work.' As far as neighbours are aware, no one has moved in to the house. There are rumours one of the victims' relatives has asked for the keys but there is no sign of anyone living there today. Shuddering, another neighbour said: 'I wouldn't want to live in there. It's a friendly community - everyone was obviously shocked. You don't expect this. ' Mosquera, a Colombian national, met Mr Alfonso online through webcam sex websites and used the names 'iamblackmaster and 'mrd—k20cm'. The court heard Mosquera visited the couple in London in October 2023 and that they travelled to Colombia in March 2024. He returned to England last June on the promise of English lessons and financial support from Mr Alfonso, whom he had met years earlier on porn websites. The court heard how he also participated in sex acts and dominated and degraded Mr Alfonso who filmed it and posted the footage online. He was in a paid sexual relationship with Mr Alfonso. Prosecutors told the trial how Mr Alfonso, a swimming instructor at Mode Gym in Acton, and Mr Longworth, a retired handyman, were in a happy long-term relationship when they were barbarically murdered by Mosquera. Mr Longworth is believed to have been killed by multiple blows to the head with a hammer between 12.30pm and 1pm on July 8 last year when Mosquera was seen closing curtains to a first floor window on CCTV. Mosquera shattered Mr Longworth's skull before hiding his body in a divan bed, the court heard. He later cut his corpse up with a power tool and knife and stuffed it in a suitcase, the trial heard. Later that day, Mr Alfonso was stabbed to death after he and Mosquera were recording themselves having sex. Jurors were shown the horror footage of Mr Alfonso being killed on camera. Mr Alfonso was in a 'submissive' role and referred to Mosquera as 'master' during the recorded session. 'What is striking, when one considers the footage, is just how calm and in control the defendant remains throughout', prosecutor Deanna Heer, KC, told the trial. On the day that the two men were killed Mosquera googled 'Where on the head is a knock fatal?' and 'How long before a corpse starts to decompose?' 'The post mortem examination of his body revealed that he had suffered severe blunt force trauma to the head which caused his death', said Ms Heer. She explained that there were injuries on his hand, which suggested that he had tried to defend himself. 'When the flat was later searched, a hammer was found lying on the floor in the hallway. It was found to be stained with Paul Longworth's blood', she said. Earlier in his evidence, Mosquera claimed Mr Alfonso cut up Mr Longworth's body after killing him. He said he stabbed Mr Alfonso because he was 'afraid that he would do the same to me that he had done to Paul'. Mosquera said after seeing Mr Longworth's dismembered body, he decided to do the same to Mr Alfonso's corpse. 'Yes I saw Paul's body and I cut Albert's. I don't know the exact moment but I cut it having seen Paul's body'. The trial heard how Mosquera was interrupted by a man while he was attempting to dispose of the suitcases on Clifton Suspension Bridge. Prosecutor Ms Heer, KC, said: 'At about 11.30pm on the night of the 10 July 2024 Douglas Cunningham was cycling home across the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol when he saw the defendant, Yostin Mosquera, standing next to a large red suitcase. 'Thinking he was a lost tourist, Mr Cunningham stopped to see if he was okay. 'A few metres away from where the defendant was standing, on the bridge approach, there was another suitcase, a large silver trunk. 'The defendant told Mr Cunningham that he was from Colombia and that the suitcase he was standing with contained car parts. That was a lie. 'In fact, the suitcases contained the decapitated and dismembered bodies of Paul Longworth and Albert Alfonso, which the defendant had taken to Bristol from their home in London where they had been killed two days before.' The trial heard how Mosquera was visiting Mr Alfonso at the time of the killings, having returned to the UK to stay with the couple on June 9 2024. On June 29 2024, Mr Alfonso and Mr Longworth took Mosquera to Brighton for the day, with photos showing them at Brighton pier, drinking beer and going on a zip wire. They also engaged in sex sessions along with another man, known by pseudonym James Smith in the trial. But on July 8 last year, Mosquera hatched his plan to kill Mr Longworth and Mr Alfonso before attempting to cover up their deaths. Mosquera had denied both murders and sought to blame Mr Alfonso for killing Mr Longworth. But the prosecution's case was that Mr Alfonso did not know and that he was out of the flat at work at the time Mr Longworth was killed and that Mosquera hid the body before he returned. The court heard that Mosquera had also got hold of Mr Alfonso's financial information, copying over spreadsheets containing his bank details relating to Barclays, Halifax, Natwest, Moneygram and Paypal on June 27. Prosecutors told the court this was to 'steal' money from Mr Alfonso. On July 8 last year, the day of the murders, Mosquera also looked up the value of the Scotts Road flat in a bid to 'find out what they [the couple] were worth'. Mosquera claimed during the trial that he feared for his own life and believed he was about to be killed when he stabbed Mr Alfonso. He also said he was 'raped every day' by Mr Alfonso, telling jurors it made him feel 'humiliated, sad and trapped', but never angry. But prosecutor Ms Heer KC reminded the court that his 'detailed' defence statement produced for trial made no mention of the alleged rape. The case was put to a retrial after incorrect evidence was placed before the jury. Mr Justice Bennathan told Mosquera, aided in the dock by an interpreter: 'I am not going to pass sentence on you today. The only sentence I can pass is one of life imprisonment.' The judge ordered psychiatric reports and adjourned sentence until 24 October. Mr Justice Bennathan also thanked the jurors who had to view the horrific footage repeatedly throughout trial.
