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Police are launching a double murder investigation three and a half years on from the disappearance of a British father and son duo.
Danny and Liam Poole vanished in April 2019 after travelling to Estepona, Spain, with a case containing £20,000 in cash.
46-year-old Danny had been linked to the drug world and the pair's family think that they could have been involved in a drug deal gone wrong.
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The car paint shop owner and his 22-year-old son, from Burgess Hill, West Sussex, travelled to the Costa del Sol town on Mother's Day in 2019, where they checked into a hotel on the resort's Valle Romano golf course.
But the last time relatives heard from the pair was the following day on April 1, and Danny was last seen on CCTV leaving the hotel alone by car.
Their passports and luggage were found abandoned in their hotel room and a month after they went missing their hire car was also discovered two miles away from their hotel, but the cash they were carrying was never recovered.
The latest update in the investigation has confirmed the family's worst fears as police say they are now treating their disappearance as a murder.
Liam's sister, Lauryn Poole was devastated to hear the news from Sussex Police after having hope ripped away from her.
She told the Mirror: “There are more bad days than good days now. On the bad days, I’d been holding on to the idea that maybe everyone had got it wrong.
"There was hope there but now it’s gone. It’s brought on a whole new level of grief, and I’ve really struggled to accept it.”
For Liam’s mum and Danny’s ex-wife Lisa Berwick, the news didn't come as a shock though.
The 46-year-old said: “I knew it from the start, but it still hurts to hear it.”
Two British men, including one with links to Merseyside, are thought to be among the last people to have seen the father and son alive, as they met with them the night before they vanished.
In June 2019 the two men were arrested by Spanish police but were never charged.
But earlier this year ex-Met detective Peter Bleksley revealed that he believed drug traffickers shielding one of Britain’s most wanted fugitives could be behind Danny and Liam's murders.
He said there was a "clear linkage" between the gangsters hiding Liverpudlian Kevin Parle and Liam and Danny's case, telling the Mirror: "I’ve now got a clear picture of how Kevin Parle remains on the run – what he does, who he does it for, and roughly where.
“There’s a clear linkage between the network of criminals that have been harbouring and funding him, and the disappearance of Danny and Liam Poole.
“It’s worthy of further investigation – the police need to take this very seriously.”
Spanish police stopped investigating Danny and Liam's disappearance after just five months and Sussex Police are now attempting to obtain the case files so that they can continue the investigation.
Despite struggling to accept the news, Lauryn said that the police's decision to investigate the case as a murder was "progress".
The 23-year-old added: “We’re just hoping it brings us answers – and closure.”
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