Miguel Silva Fernández, ‘el Macho’, was a fugitive from Justice and the Civil Guard suspected that he could be hidden in La Puebla de Almoradiel, in La Mancha in Toledo, for a few months. However, this 43-year-old man took security measures and did not allow himself to be seen in this small municipality of just 5,000 inhabitants.
The agents of the post of this municipality and of the area of Quintanar de la Orden carried his photograph in the patrol cars along with his physical characteristics and his bloody criminal history. They knew he could be a ‘trigger-happy’ type if they met him face-to-face. Convicted of three intentional homicides in Puertollano (Ciudad Real), according to the Civil Guard, he also has numerous police records for robberies with violence, injuries, for breach of sentence or crimes against public health, mainly between 2015 and 2019.
The guards of this town in La Mancha have also known the family for a long time, who have lived in the town for years: Miguel Silva’s wife lives on La Uva street and his daughter lives just over a kilometer away, on Entrevías street. But ‘el Macho used to let himself be seen by people close to him because he knew what was there, so the investigations by the Civil Guard to locate him did not have the desired effect.
But, as happens when one least expects it, the stroke of luck that is sometimes needed in life arose. Good luck for the Civil Guard, bad luck for Miguel Silva Fernández, a gypsy born in 1978. On the morning of June 3 to 4, around two o’clock, there was a call to the 062 emergency telephone number. only betting room in the town -before Codere, now Versus- and they reported that there was a disturbance of public order.
A couple from the La Puebla de Almoradiel post, the only one on duty for eight towns, attended the notice. Two agents from Corral de Almaguer also joined, 30 kilometers from the bookmaker, which opens daily at the intersection of Santa Cruz street with Libertad avenue, one of the town’s exits.
Miguel, who was inside the premises, was asked for his identification and verbally provided affiliation data for a brother. But ‘el Macho’ did not have the expertise of one of the guards, the sergeant and head of the La Puebla de Almoradiel post. The very experienced agent knew that he was in front of the criminal they had been looking for for months.
Four legal indictments weighed on him, two of them imprisoning him: one by order of the Provincial Court of Ciudad Real for homicide and the other, by a court in this capital. The remaining two had been issued by a court in Quintanar de la Orden (Toledo) -eight kilometers from La Puebla de Almoradiel- and by another in Getafe (Madrid), which ordered the search, arrest and appearance of the ‘Macho’ before the judicial authority.
The fugitive, who had another address in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) in his police file, was searched and arrested without offering resistance. He was not armed and the agents did not have to draw his service weapon. «It is a good intervention of the Civil Guard; pretending to be a brother and that the veteran guard knew it, is a good intervention, “says a national police officer who knows the ‘Macho’.
One of the three intentional homicides committed by Miguel Silva dates back to April 23, 2003 on Calle Callao de Puertollano, in the Pino neighborhood of this Ciudad Real town with a mining past. Accompanied by his friend José Amador de Cádiz, they killed Manuel Utrera, 18, in his home. They were armed with a pistol and a sawn-off hunting shotgun to allegedly rob him. But the story ended in a crime and he was arrested hours later.
At that time Miguel lived in San Martín de Porres, a shantytown in Ciudad Real, 45 kilometers from Puertollano. He and his buddy traveled by car from the provincial capital, entered the mining district, killed Manuel and returned to Ciudad Real, with a movie police chase, recall sources consulted by ‘ABC’.
‘El Macho’ managed to enter his neighborhood and a uniformed couple was about to stop him. Outside the cars, with one vehicle facing another, the policemen, Miguel and José Amador, pointed guns at each other at close range. But residents of the neighborhood, from the windows, pointed at the agents, who had to let them go. Then a deployment of the National Police with several vehicles and agents surrounded the neighborhood, and controlled all its exits and entrances. As drug addicts could not enter to buy drugs, the patriarchs forced Miguel to leave and turn himself in, says an agent who participated in that operation.
Months later, in that same neighborhood, a brawl between the Silva and Cádiz clans led to the murder of a father and a son, for whom Miguel’s father paid in prison. El Macho ‘, for his part, was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2006 for the intentional homicide of Manuel Utreña, in addition to a robbery with violence, breaking and entering and illegal possession of weapons.
He was serving his sentence in Madrid VI, in Aranjuez, when he took advantage of a prison permit not to return to prison. He was discovered in his hiding place in Coín (Málaga) thanks to the Civil Guard’s Operation Marea Azul and arrested in December 2015. As now, then he identified himself with the documentation of another person with whom he shared similar physical characteristics. . But he didn’t sneak in and ‘el Macho’ has returned to prison.
