JAY TWIST
Jay Slater disappearance has links to ‘criminal network’ in Tenerife, claims ex-Maddie investigator
Convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim has been revealed as the man behind the nickname 'Johnny Vegas'
JAY Slater's disappearance has links to an "established criminal network" in Tenerife, an ex-cop working on the case has claimed.
Mark Williams-Thomas, who has made documentaries on Madeleine McCann and Jimmy Savile, provided a video update on the case in which he made the bombshell claim.
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The former detective claimed today that his efforts have "opened up an established criminal network with links to drugs , violent crime and thefts".
He said: "As part of this investigation we have sought to speak with all of the people Jay had contact with whilst in Tenerife.
"The result of this digging has opened up an established criminal network with links to drugs, violent crime and theft.
"At this stage I cannot expand any further on what we now know.
"I'm unable to say if this network has anything to do with Jay's disappearance but remain open-minded as we continue to investigate."
Mark also revealed that convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim is in fact the mystery man known as 'Johnny Vegas'.
Up until now it was believed the nickname referred to the second man Jay travelled back to Qassim's Airbnb with - but Mark has revealed otherwise.
It comes after The Sun revealed Ayub, 31, rented the £40-a-night holiday let under a different surname with the unnamed friend.
Most read in The Sun
Jay, 19, went to the Airbnb - called Case Abuela Tina - in northwest Tenerife at around 5am on June 17, just hours before he vanished.
Jay Slater's Dad furious over search
Mark said: “We know the two men who took Jay back to the rental apartment were key people to speak to.
“As a result I’ve now spoken in some detail to one of these men, Ayub Qassim, who is known as Johnny Vegas.”
In a huge development, the former cop also revealed: “And I’ve also identified the other male who was with him, but I’ve not yet spoken to him”.
The second man remains a key piece of the puzzle in the bizarre mystery of Jay's disappearance.
Qassim, who booked the Airbnb under the surname Abdul, and his friend spoke to Spanish police after Jay vanished.
Officials deemed them "irrelevant" to the ongoing investigation and let them fly home to the UK the very next day.
During Mark's bombshell video he said: "Ayub has provided me with his account of what he says happened on that morning, Monday the 17th of June."
The former cop goes on to describe a chain of events that align with what we already know.
Jay didn’t want to leave a rave in the early hours of June 17 with his friends Brad and Lucy, when they headed back to their hotel.
Instead, Mark explains, “he wanted to carry on partying and he said he had nowhere to stay”.
Qassim offers their holiday let as a bolthole for the night, and along with his unnamed friend, drives Jay back.
The next morning, Mark says Qassim told him he offered Jay a lift back to Los Cristianos and tells him “no bus is coming”.
Mark goes on: “Ayub says, he says to him, mate, just chill out. I'll drop you off in town when I wake up properly.
“He [Jay] went, no, no, no, no. I'm hungry. I need to get a scran. And the woman told me I can get a bus every 10 minutes to Los Cristianos.
“Ayub says he replies, there's no bus coming. This is my green door if you need me, he says he shut the door.
“Jay walks away and he [Ayub] goes back to sleep.
“He [Ayub] then says he gets a call from a friend of Jay's who says that he's in a ditch somewhere and he's been cut by a cactus.”
Qassim, who The Sun revealed was jailed for nine years in 2015, previously insisted: "Jay came to the house alive, and he left the house alive."
The mysterious case of Jay Slater, three weeks on
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
Monday July 8 marks three weeks since Jay Slater, a 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, vanished in Tenerife.
The apprentice bricklayer, who flew out to the popular holiday island for a rave festival with friends Lucy Law and Brad Page, has made headlines around the country.
On Sunday June 16 the three of them headed off to one of the events at Papagayo nightclub.
In the early hours of Monday 17 - Lucy and Brad were ready to head back to their hotel, but Jay wanted to keep partying.
It was then that he left the south of the island and headed to an Airbnb in the northwest with two British men.
The Sun revealed the identity of one of them - convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, who spent nine years behind bars in the UK.
For days it was thought that the second mystery man went by the name ‘Johnny Vegas’.
On Sunday former detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who is out in Tenerife investigating, said Qassim told him he is in fact the man behind the nickname ‘Johnny Vegas’.
We don’t yet know the identity of the second man - who remains a key part of the puzzle in Jay’s mysterious disappearance.
Qassim claims he drove Jay and the friend back to their accommodation and said they all went to sleep.
In the morning he offered to drive the teen back to the Los Cristianos resort after a nap, but Jay, hungry and tired, said he wanted to leave immediately.
Lucy, the last person to speak to Jay, claims she had a panicked call from him soon after he left the holiday let, telling her he was lost and thirsty, his phone was about to die and that he’d been cut by a cactus.
Jay had been seen by the owner of the Airbnb that morning wandering around near the Rural de Teno park - a mountainous region close-by.
He is believed to have been attempting the 11-hour trek back to his hotel, despite the alleged offer of a lift and more buses scheduled for the day.
It was there that his phone last pinged - and he hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
Mark Williams-Thomas has claimed he left the Airbnb quickly, and was “scared”.
Bizarrely, Qassim says he was woken up that morning by a phone call from an unnamed friend of Jay, saying he was “in a ditch” somewhere and had been “cut by a cactus”.
Jay’s friend Lucy claimed to have “tracked down” the two men in the Airbnb after he vanished - quizzing them on the morning of Jay’s disappearance.
Some reports have suggested Lucy knew the two men, although it is not clear how.
She has dubbed his disappearance “weird and suspicious”.
Both men were questioned by Spanish cops on June 17 but quickly deemed “irrelevant” to the investigation and cleared to fly back to the UK.
Police spent almost two weeks searching for Jay in the Tenerife mountains, scouring a 2,000ft ravine, before calling it off on Sunday June 30.
Jay’s family have repeatedly slammed the Spanish investigation into his bizarre disappearance.
His uncle, Glen Duncan, is convinced of “third party involvement”.
And the teen’s devastated dad, Warren Slater, says “everything stinks”
He told The Sun: "My starting position, I’ve said this from day one, ask the two men who’ve taken him - and then start from there."
A number of unanswered questions remain, over why Jay would have travelled so far with two older men he didn’t know, why said men would have taken him in, and why he braved the Tenerife mountains with no phone battery, water or heat protection for a day-long walk.
Qassim added: "I let the geezer stay at mine because he had nowhere else to go.
"His friends had all left him.
"I know Jay, through friends, I'm not going to bring someone back to mine if I don't know them.
"I'm doing the geezer a favour and now my face is all over the news. It's a bit mental. I haven't even done anything."
Jay's own family returned to the Tenerife mountains yesterday to keep searching for the teen.
Police called off their mammoth efforts last Sunday.
Jay's exhausted uncle, Glen Duncan, told The Sun that he is now convinced others were involved in his nephew's disappearance.
He said: "I've been thinking third party involvement from the start.
"There's just some things that have already been out there."
In a bombshell claim, Glen said he was "baffled" by the police decision to rule out the two men who Jay spent the night with at a £40-a-night Airbnb before he vanished.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
Despite police clearing the Brit men to return to the UK, there have been calls for police to speak to them again amid the ongoing mystery of Jay's disappearance.
They drove Jay to their remote cottage in the mountains, high above the colourful strip of Tenerife's club scene, after meeting him at a music festival.
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