Google Maps and Google Street View have become essential tools in our daily lives, both for finding our way and for traveling the world from any connected device. But these services offered by GAFAM can also be used to solve crimes. Yes yes. Against all expectations, the Street View capture of a small Spanish village has just offered a last crucial element in the context of an ongoing investigation. It has been more than a month since local authorities tried to solve the strange disappearance of a Cuban man, who vanished after visiting his wife who lives in Spain.
The two main suspects have just been arrested this Wednesday, December 18 following the revelation of a final clue, and not the least: a Google Street View photo. If you live in the countryside, you will know that the passage of a Google car is not a very common event. In France as in other countries, the most recent Street View images in rural areas may be more than a decade old. This was also the case in the small village of Tajuecolocated almost 3 hours north of Madrid, whose last visual archives date back to 2009… Until the unexpected passage of a Google Car last October. During his roundthe car not only did local Google Maps users a favor: it also displayed a criminal about to hide a dead body.
A combination of circumstances worthy of a series
According to the Spanish newspaper The Countrythis unexpected discovery made it possible to connect all the elements that the investigators already had. Two suspects were able to be identified thanks to crucial initial clues such as telephone exchanges. But it is to the Google Maps image that the authorities owe the end of the story. While visiting his wife, the victim from Cuba discovered that his partner had started a new life with another Spanish man. This meeting went badly for the Cuban, as confirmed by the Street View image of the lover putting the corpse in his car trunk.
This clue made it possible to locate the body in a nearby cemetery, incriminating once and for all the couple in their forties. This unusual case quickly went around the world, because without the passage of a Google car on this street for the first time in 15 years, the investigation could have dragged on or even ended without further action. Since it only took a few hours for the Street View photo to go viral, how long will it be before a streaming platform seizes the story to announce a true crime series?
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