Costa del Sol burglary: 'They threatened to cut off my fingers and to rape her'

At around 7.30pm on Thursday 16 January Manuel Lavao and Cleiddy Arroyo were at home. Cleiddy was on the sofa watching television and Manuel was asleep in the bedroom. "I heard the dogs barking very loudly and I went out, then I saw five hooded men coming, they grabbed me and covered my mouth and put me inside a room," Cleiddy explains.

The couple were victims of a violent burglary that the National Police are now investigating, which took place at their farmhouse located between the La Pañoleta industrial estate in Vélez-Málaga and Torre del Mar on the eastern Costa del Sol.

"They started slapping us and asking us where the safe was, if we had money in, but we don't have a safe. We quickly gave them the six thousand euros we had in cash, but they insisted on a safe," 41-year-old Cleiddy told SUR. Her husband, 87, was violently awoken by the thieves who also gagged him and tied his hands and feet.

"They threatened several times to cut off my fingers and that they were going to rape her," recalls Lavao, a retired businessman in the agricultural sector, who is well known in Vélez-Málaga. "I have lived in France, Holland, Belgium, South Africa, Algeria and the Dominican Republic and never in my life had anything like this ever happened to me", said Lavao, who for 25 years ran a business selling churros in Calle Las Monjas in Vélez-Málaga, for which his nickname in the town is 'Churrero'.

"A lot of people in Vélez-Málaga know me, but I don't suspect anyone, I have no debts with anyone, but these thieves knew where they were going, they were coming for me because one of them was talking to another one on the phone," said Lavao. The couple have now decided to stop living in this farmhouse, where they had been living since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

The burglars locked the doors and windows and turned off all the lights in the house so as not to arouse suspicion. The nearest houses are only a hundred metres away, but the neighbours were unable to help them. "We had two anxiety attacks and the thieves gave us some water when they saw that my husband had fainted", said Arroyo as she walked through the different rooms of the house, still with very visible traces of the disorder caused by the attackers.

A week has passed since the robbery and the couple are trying to recover and turn the page on the nightmare they experienced that evening. "We've already fixed a lot, but still look how everything is messed up and destroyed, they even took our food out of the fridge and freezer", said Lavao, showing the damage to one of the fridge drawers.

Although the couple gave the burglars all the money they had in cash and told them where the jewellery was, the thieves kept insisting on the safe. "It was a disaster, they emptied our bedroom wardrobes, the bathroom, looking for more money," said Arroyo. "They spoke in Arabic", added Cleiddy, who is originally from the Dominican Republic.

"It was very traumatic, very unpleasant, at almost 88 years old I don't think I deserve this, but well, things come when they come," said Lavao. "I had to go to the doctor because I could have another anxiety attack and they prescribed me pills," added his wife, who is still very affected by the events.