Colombian police have held a suspect in relation to the murder of Alessandro Coatti, an Italian scientist who was targeted through dating app Grindr and whose remains were found in the coastal city of Santa Marta earlier this year.

As The Times reports, Coatti was reported missing in April 2025 after travelling to South America in search of volunteering opportunities. His remains were subsequently found in plastic bags around the city days later.

Police arrested six members of a gang in relation to the murder, who are believed to have robbed and killed Coatti after he was lured to a meeting spot via the dating app Grindr.

Last week, police identified Uber Etilvio Torres García as the suspect they believe to have orchestrated the murder and arrested him following a raid of a neighbourhood in Santa Marta.

Torres García had been spotted walking with Coatti on a beach in Santa Marta on the day Coatti disappeared. The Colombian police believe he used Grindr to arrange a date before driving him to a house in the San José del Pando neighbourhood, where a gang was waiting.

The gang then beat up and restrained Coatti in an attempt to extract his bankcard passcodes. Police believe the scientist refused and the gang’s beating intensified, resulting in his murder.

They also believe that the gang dismembered Coatti’s body and left it in various locations in order to convince police to believe that drug traffickers were responsible for his death.

Investigators previously followed a line of inquiry which suggested that Coatti had been mistaken for a member of the Italian mafia. Following his death, members of the scientific community in which Alessandro Coatti worked shared tributes.

The Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, where Coatti was a graduate student, said Coatti was “friendly, open-minded, optimistic, positive, enthusiastic, and kind”.

“We are heartbroken for his parents and family, and we can only offer our deepest condolences and sorrow,” the statement said.

“We will carry his memory with us—his smile, his curiosity, his warmth. This is a profoundly tragic end to a beautiful life.”

The Scuola Normale, where Coatti studied biology, said he will be “immensely missed”.

“[We] will cherish every moment that we got to spend with such a gentle soul,” the institute said in a statement.