Father of Aussie woman, 20, murdered on a Mozambique beach opens up about how he hunted down drug-dealing pimp prime suspect despite getting NO help from Australian police
The father of a woman who was murdered and possibly raped on a beach in Mozambique has revealed he was forced to use Google to translate a police report due to lack of support from the Australian police.
Melbourne woman Elly Warren, 20, was on a diving and volunteering program when she was killed during a night out with friends in the tourist village of Tofo in November 2016.
Ms Warren's father Paul has spent at least $50,000 and made two trips to the African nation over the last four years after taking the investigation into his own hands.
Elly Warren, 20, was on a diving and volunteering program in Mozambique when she was murdered and possibly raped in November 2016. Pictured with her father Paul
The father-of-three has spent at least $50,000 and made two trips to Tofo over the last four years investigating Elly's death (pictured, the keen diver out at sea)
Mr Warren believes he has uncovered the gang leader responsible for murdering Elly (pictured) and called on homicide detectives in Mozambique to follow up his search
On August 17 the Australian embassy in South Africa told the desperate father-of-three it would translate an eight-page police report in Portuguese for him.
But in October Mr Warren was informed Australian officials reneged on the offer because 'our embassy currently does not have the resources to translate the document'.
He was left with no other option than to use Google Translate to decipher what the document said.
'Once again, I just feel stupid for listening to them. I keep getting told to be patient and wait for the authorities to do things, and time and time again it turns out they're not doing anything at all and I end up having to do it myself,' Mr Warren told The Australian.
Decorated Victoria Police homicide detective Charlie Bezzina said it's preposterous that Mr Warren has received such little help from Australian authorities.
'One of our citizens has been murdered in another country and here you have her father having to do most of the investigating because the case is getting the political runaround,' Mr Bezzina said.
The revelations come a day after Mr Warren claimed to have identified a suspect in his daughter's murder after convincing a sex worker to infiltrate a crime gang.
'He's a bad man and is well-known and feared around Tofo. The locals think he can get away with anything because he pays off the police,' he said.
'What we know for sure is that he runs a prostitution ring, deals cocaine and is notorious for drugging tourists and robbing them.'
Mr Warren received a tip-off from 'a very concerned South African mother' in March and she warned him of a man who 'spikes tourists' drinks and steals from them'.
He then discussed the information with a German private investigator who had offered to work on the investigation into Ms Warren's death pro-bono.
Elly Warren (pictured), 20, from Melbourne was on a diving and volunteering program in the village of Tofo in Mozambique when she was murdered and possibly raped in 2016
On August 17 the Australian embassy in South Africa told the desperate father-of-three it would translate an eight-page police report in Portuguese for him
Mr Warren was informed Australian officials reneged on the offer because 'our embassy currently does not have the resources to translate the document'
The pair spent a few months planning an undercover surveillance mission and put the plan into action in August after local authorities had still not made any arrests.
'I felt I had no other choice but to run this operation... So we organised a prostitute to move to Tofo and befriend this gang leader over time to find out what we could about him and how he operates,' Mr Warren said.
He explained the operation ran for about four weeks, ending when the sex worker began to fear for her life, and identified the crime boss as a key person of interest.
The sex worker obtained a number of covert recordings of the gang leader, who could be heard boasting about his criminal exploits and threatening a young woman.
Mr Warren now believes his daughter may have fallen victim to a bungled robbery attempt by the gang and been accidentally killed after she tried to resist.
He said they could have dumped her body, which was found by the side of a toilet block, because they knew the police would try to cover-up the rape and murder of a foreign tourist.
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