Police are now searching for three suspects in connection with the shooting. A garda liaison officer based in Madrid is travelling to the Costa del Sol today to co-ordinate co-operation between the gardai and local officers.Keogh was shot dead by members of a rival drugs gang outside a casino in the tourist resort of Benalmadena on Saturday night. Shortly before the murder, Keogh had been drinking with a group of associates in an Irish bar in the resort.Spanish police initially interviewed the group as witnesses to pin down Keogh's movements and then arrested one of them, a South American man who was wanted there for alleged drug offences.Officers insisted last night that the arrest was not linked to their investigation into Keogh's brutal death.The getaway car, a Honda Civic, was found less than half a mile from the murder scene. It had been stolen last October and was discovered outside a school where the gunman had failed in his efforts to set it alight and then abandoned it.
Forensic experts took away a handgun magazine and a pair of gloves that were left in the car.Spanish interior ministry official Hilario Lopez said the murder bore the hallmarks of a gangland execution, although police were also examining other theories.Keogh (30), moved with his partner and four children to Spain after he was shot by a gang with paramilitary links while living in Duleek, Co Meath in November 2007. But he continued his links with drug trafficking on the Costa del Sol.
Keogh was regarded as a "second-tier" operator who had a wide-ranging list of international contacts, particularly in Spain and South America.Police said he was shot eight times near Torrequebrada casino on a main road overlooking the Mediterranean. He tried to escape after being shot at twice, but fell injured outside a supermarket opposite the casino. He was shot again at close range.
Keogh, originally from Carnlough Road, in Cabra, Dublin, was hit twice in the head, twice in the back and also in the thigh, lower leg and arm.Up to a dozen bullet casings were recovered from the scene.Bruno Bernet, a waiter at a nearby Italian restaurant, said: "Customers jumped when they heard the shots. I heard five". Meanwhile, Fianna Fail MEP Eoin Ryan last night called for a European-wide confiscation order for the seizure of assets from criminals involved in organised crime.He said many criminals were involved in jurisdiction hopping, which meant they illegally imported and sold drugs in one EU country, laundered the financial proceeds in another and then purchased assets, such as houses, cars and yachts, in a third country.DRUGS double-cross is believed to have been behind the latest brutal murder of an Irish criminal on Spain's Costa del Sol.Spanish police said they were satisfied trafficker Richard Keogh had fallen foul of a rival drugs outfit and the row led to his death in the tourist resort of Benalmadena on Saturday night.
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