The Judiciary Investigative Police (OIJ) carried out several searches in the early morning Friday, January 11, in Costa Rica and also in Spain with the assistance of the local authorities in that country. All searches were in relation to the kidnapping of William Sean Creighton (known as Tony), owner of 5Dimes sportsbook in Costa Rica who went missing on September 24, 2018.

In total in Costa Rica there were 10 searches in La Unión, Cartago; Santo Domingo, Heredia; Guadalupe, San José; Siquirres, Limón and Limón (center), which as a result left 9 people arrested.

In Spain the operation was focused on one location in the region of Zaragoza where one person was apprehended.

All suspects arrested in this case are Costa Rican.

Walter Espinoza, director of OIJ, informed that the line of investigation and the trail of money led them to these arrests.

¨The leaders of the group are in Zaragoza, and it was determined that in Costa Rica there are nine people close to the circle that planned the kidnapping¨.

Espinoza also confirmed that Spanish police authorities (Guardia Civil) has been colaborating with Costa Rican authorities for over a month ago.

Espinoza affirmed that they are still trying to locate Creighton, who is 43-years-old, a native of the US but also a Costa Rican citizen, he is married to a Costa Rican and has two children.

According to the version of the story shared to us by OIJ, Creighton was last seen September 24 when he left his office in the area of San Pedro and supposedly went to drop off a co-worker in Curridabat, the man never arrived at his house in Santa Ana. There are still many questions left unanswered and hopefully with these arrests more crucial information will come to light.

The car “Tony” was driving, a Porsche Cayenne, was found crashed in Heredia, OIJ clarified that the area where it was found did not necessarily correspond to where the kidnap occurred.

Even though Creighton runs a successful business, his name is not directly linked to the company, instead he has representatives and his wife’s name appears on many of the corporations in the country.

Some spanish media outlets reported months back that the family paid a ransom of close to $750,000-$900 thousand in cryptocurrency but the family attorney who spoke to The Costa Rica Star on October 25th stated “Right from the moment when the disappearance of the aforementioned businessman was reported to the OIJ and to date, no message demanding the payment of a ransom of anything of a similar nature has been received”

**News in Development**