A social media influencer who boasted of a life of luxury cars and jet sets has been found dismembered in Argentina.
The torso and limbs of Fernando Pérez Algaba were found by two children playing near a stream under a bridge in Buenos Aires on July 23, we learned this week.
His head was later found in a backpack downstream.
Authorities told local media the 41-year-old died after being shot three times and that his limbs had been “cleanly” amputated, suggesting the work of an experienced criminal.
Allegations have since emerged that Algaba was facing a growing pile of debt, tax issues and demands for money from investors in a “bankrupt” cryptocurrency firm, which he admitted. to have “spinned out of control”.
The Argentinian national, who is believed to have recently returned home after living in Barcelona, has portrayed himself as a self-made millionaire who could help others amass wealth.
Along with posting photos of himself in designer clothes, high-end watches and supercars to nearly a million Instagram followers, he told a colorful ‘rags to riches’ story to local newspapers in the months before his death.
In various interviews, he claimed to have started as a pizza delivery boy before becoming a “Forex and cryptocurrency trader” and then moving to Miami to run a jet ski and car rental company.
He followed humble admissions of having ‘lost everything’ in the ‘dangerous’ stock market at one point with outlandish claims that he turned claims of $100,000 into $200,000 ‘in four days’ on the financial markets.
According to Argentinian broadcaster C5N, in 2021 Algaba was accused of assaulting one of two men who accused him of defrauding them by not delivering a car they had paid for.
He also allegedly accumulated tax debts with the Argentine tax authorities that were classified as “uncollectible”, and one of his companies started writing bad checks just 10 months after it was incorporated.
Citing court sources, Argentine newspaper La Nación said Algaba left a note on his phone suggesting he feared for his life after one of his investments went wrong.
“If something happens to me, everyone is already warned,” he wrote.
The note allegedly referred to a $40,000 investment made by the son of a senior member of a local football hooligan firm.
He apparently described asking the man “to wait a few months for me to settle down”, but then received a call in which he “threatened me”.
The note, which according to La Nación was shared with several contacts, began: “Hello, well, in principle, I apologize to all the people that I let them down and I could not pay them this that they gave me.
“At first it started as an investment in cryptocurrencies and little by little it got out of control.
“Nothing that happened was intentional. With every new attempt to move forward, there was always the possibility of recovering what was lost. And there was the mistake.
Cryptocurrencies and most forex trading systems are very risky investments in which the majority of investors lose money, according to UK and US financial authorities.
Argentine police investigating the case have arrested one person, a woman linked to documents found in the suitcase, but detectives believe other suspects are still at large.
Despite the apparent care taken in dismembering Algaba’s body, authorities do not believe he was killed by an organized gang.
Buenos Aires Security Minister Sergio Berni told C5N the suspects acted “quickly and almost madly”.
He added: “A more professional criminal does it differently, not like this. The situation was very spectacular, a somewhat macabre event.
Algaba reportedly traveled with her French bulldog, Kupper, who is still missing.
Contact our press team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
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