A COUPLE have been arrested in Portugal on suspicion of killing a hotel worker and chopping off his fingers to access his bank account and steal a £60,000 inheritance.
Security worker Maria Malveira, 19, is accused of strangling former lover Diogo Goncalves, 21, before disposing of his body with the help of nurse Mariana Fonseca, 23.
Malveira is reported to have previously had an affair with Goncalves but to have later moved in with Fonseca.
She is thought to have offered Goncalves a lap dance as an excuse to tie him to a chair before strangling him and severing his fingers, the fingerprints from which could be used to access his bank account using an app on his mobile phone.
Goncalves had reportedly received an inheritance of £60,000 after his mother was killed in a hit-and-run in July 2016.
Malveira and Fonseca are alleged to have dismembered Goncalves at their home near the town of Lagos using a sword and a meat cleaver between March 20 and March 25.
A number of Goncalves’s body parts were discovered in different locations around the Algarve on March 27.
His torso was discovered in a coastal spot near the town of Sagres, around 15 miles west of Lagos, after police launched a search because his Mercedes had been found abandoned nearby.
His head was chanced upon by a French couple in Tavira, around 55 miles in the opposite direction.
His arms and legs have not yet been found.
Writing on Facebook, friends remembered Goncalves as a “good person”.
Portuguese police said that two women, aged 19 and 23, both with a clean criminal record, had been arrested on suspicion of murdering a 21-year-old man and desecrating his body.
Antonio Madureira, director of serious crime investigation unit Polícia Judiciária in the region of Faro, confirmed the murder is thought to have been finaically motivated.
The suspected killers have been remanded in prison after appearing before a judge in a closed-court hearing.
A Policia Judiciaria spokesman said in a statement: “The PJ has identified and arrested two women on suspicion of a crime of murder and profanation of a body.
“The victim, a Portuguese citizen aged 21 who lived on the Algarve, was dismembered and parts of his body have been found in the areas of Sagres and Tavira.
“The police investigation sparked by the appearance of the body parts in the Tavira area led to the obtention of important evidence and the identification and arrest of the suspects.”
