AP-7 Kidnap Victim Escapes Second Abduction Attempt in Sabadell
A man snatched on the AP-7 in September was beaten with baseball bats in Sabadell on Nov. 12 and escaped a new kidnap bid. What police know so far.
A man whose kidnapping on the AP-7 motorway was filmed by passing drivers in September was attacked with baseball bats in Sabadell on the night of Thursday, Nov. 12, and escaped a second attempt to force him into a car, Metrópoli Abierta reported. He was injured but got away on foot.
The Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalonia’s police) are investigating whether both attacks are part of the same score-settling linked to drug trafficking. The case comes as police record a rise in so-called express kidnappings across Catalonia.
A late-night meeting that turned into an ambush
According to the first reconstruction of events, the man had arranged to meet someone at a spot in Sabadell, a city in the Vallès Occidental area north of Barcelona, at around 23:00. When he arrived, a group of five or six men travelling in two vehicles confronted him.
They hit him repeatedly with baseball bats and tried to push him into one of the cars. He broke free and ran before they could take him. He was later treated for his injuries at a hospital in Sabadell, where officers took an initial statement from him.
The case is being handled by the Divisió d’Investigació Criminal (DIC, the criminal investigation unit) of the Mossos in the Metropolitana Nord police region. Investigators are trying to identify the attackers and establish the motive. Their work has been slowed because the victim, who had left prison shortly before the first incident, is giving them little cooperation, the outlet said.
The September kidnapping on the AP-7
The same man became widely known in September, when video shot by other drivers went viral. It showed a group of men who looked like police officers stopping the car he was travelling in with his partner on the AP-7, pulling him out and putting him into another vehicle.
He was released hours later with signs that he had been beaten. Police inquiries at the time connected that kidnapping to a failed deal to buy and sell a large load of hashish in the Vallès Occidental area.
Detectives now want to know whether the people behind Thursday’s bat attack carried out the September abduction, or whether a different group within the same dispute is involved.
What it means for the Barcelona area
The attack is the latest in a run of express kidnappings in Catalonia, in which victims are seized and held for a short time. Figures from the Catalan police show more than fifteen kidnappings or attempted kidnappings in the region so far in 2026, Metrópoli Abierta reported, most of them driven by debts, stolen goods or internal disputes in the drug trade. A related report from the same outlet counted six cases in the Barcelona metropolitan area in a month and a half.
Sabadell has seen this kind of crime before. About three weeks ago the city was the scene of another high-risk police operation tied to the same type of offence, and investigators have described a mix of street violence and military-grade weapons in Catalonia that keeps criminal investigation units on high alert.
The violence described so far has involved people linked to drug-trafficking disputes. Police have not said whether anyone has been arrested over the Sabadell attack, and no suspects have been named.
What police are working on next
The DIC is focused on identifying the five or six attackers and the two vehicles they used, and on comparing the Sabadell ambush with the September kidnapping on the AP-7. Any link between the two cases would point investigators toward the people involved in the failed hashish deal in the Vallès Occidental.
Source: Metrópoli Abierta
