A popular cryptocurrency influencer was declared missing last week, and his body was found dismembered in a suitcase over the weekend.
Fernando Pérez Algaba, 41, a businessman who made millions renting luxury vehicles and selling cryptocurrency, was reported missing on July 18, after disappearing from the apartment he was renting while on a trip to Argentina. Algaba, who has more than 900,000 followers on Instagram, was staying in Argentina for a week and was supposed to return the keys to the apartment on July 19.
Algaba, who lives in Barcelona, Spain, didn’t return the keys and didn’t answer his phone, the property owner reportedly told authorities, according to the New York Post.
Over the weekend, a group of children playing near a stream in Ingeniero Budge, a town in the Buenos Aires Province, found a red suitcase filled with body parts and told their parents. The parents called the police, who inspected the suitcase and found Algaba’s legs and a forearm. They then searched the stream and found his other arm. On Wednesday, they found Algaba’s head and torso.
Algaba was identified by his fingerprints and distinctive tattoos. His body parts had been cleanly amputated, which suggested a professional was behind the dismembering, according to local media. An autopsy revealed that Algaba had been shot three times before his body was dismembered, the Post reported.
Argentinian authorities opened a murder investigation and have already arrested one suspect believed to be involved, though the motive remains unknown. Authorities reportedly suspect the influencer was killed over money, as he had a lot of debts.
Algaba, known to his friends as Lechuga, meaning lettuce, began working at the age of 14.
“I started with a bicycle and a box and I started selling sandwiches,” Algaba told his followers at some point, adding that he moved on to buying vehicles that he would repair and the sell.
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By the time he was 24, Algaba had a warehouse filled with luxury vehicles, motorcycles, and jet skis, the Post reported. He then started a business in Miami renting out the vehicles and jet skis before moving to Spain earlier this year. In the past few years, Algaba has also run a cryptocurrency trading business in Spain with 25 employees.
But Algaba was also in serious debt, La Nacion reported. He had incurred “irrecoverable” debts with Argentina’s tax agency. The company he founded in 2018, Motors Lettuce SRL, also began bouncing checks less than a year after it started. He also reportedly left a note on his phone that said he had lost money investing in crypto.
Further, Algaba reportedly had issues with a violent Argentina gang known as Barra Bravas, which had allegedly demanded he pay them a $40,000 loan.
“If something happens to me, everyone is already warned,” he reportedly wrote in one message.