EXCLUSIVE: Spanish police searching for Levi Davis are probing whether the X Factor star could have fallen into the sea as his family say officers have ruled out gang involvement
- Levi’s mother said police are examining whether her son may have fallen in sea
- Spanish cops said there was no ‘logical’ explanation for Levi’s disappearance
- Private investigator Gavin Burrows however suspects foul play is involved
Police searching for missing rugby star Levi Davis are to investigate reports he may have fallen into the sea – as his family say officers do not believe there is any criminal involvement.
Levi’s mother, Julie Davis, said the authorities in Barcelona are probing whether the former Bath winger and X Factor: Celebrity star was the man seen in water close to the city’s port early on October 30.
He was last seen leaving The Old Irish Pub on Barcelona’s La Rambla the previous evening. His phone and bank accounts have not been used.
Crew members of a cruise ship docking in the port noticed a man in the sea and threw a life buoy to him.
Police and coastguard launched a search for the man but no-one was located.
Former Bath rugby player Davis, 24, went missing on October 29 after leaving a friend in Ibiza to get the ferry to Barcelona alone
Now, Spanish detectives are investigating whether Levi fell into the sea
Davis travelled on a ferry from Ibiza to Barcelona from where he went missing
Julie Davis is the mother of missing rugby ace Levi
Levi’s passport was discovered on a bench outside the port a week after his disappearance.
READ MORE: Who is Levi Davis and why did he disappear? Missing rugby ace and X Factor star vanished in Spain ‘owing £100K to Somali mafia’… as his tearful mother Julie Davis is consoled by Susanna Reid on GMB
As his 25th birthday approaches, his mother has said that officers in the Catalan city are now going to investigate whether that man was him.
Mrs Davis said it was still a missing persons enquiry and the police do not suspect that a criminal gang snatched him off the street because he had run up a debt as has been previously reported.
In a statement released to MailOnline this evening, Mrs Davis and Levi’s friends and family said: ‘Following a meeting with the Spanish Police on Wednesday 1st March and contrary to the false and distressing stories being published in some of the newspapers, the facts are as follows.
‘Gang involvement is NOT being considered or investigated at this time as their focus is on facts and concrete evidence including where he was last seen, telephone calls he made, apps he used and people he may have arranged to meet.
‘They have now identified who he was last in contact with.
‘This is still a missing persons case, it is NOT and never has been a criminal case and there is not and never has been an imminent arrest.
‘The reports of a man seen in the water in the Port on the morning of the 30th October is now being fully investigated with the help of the other relevant police forces.
‘This is also where his passport was found.
CCTV shows Davis leaving an Irish bar in Barcelona on October 29
This is a still from the last video Levi Davis sent his mum before he went missing in Barcelona
‘While we are grateful to private investigator Gavin Burrows and his team for the work they have done, we have asked that he now leave this matter with the legal authorities.
‘We would also ask that the press, many of whom have been extremely supportive and respectful, refrain from printing conspiracy theories and hearsay which is causing a huge amount of emotional distress to family and friends not to mention potentially damaging the reputation of a young man who achieved so much in his young life.
‘We would like to thank the West Midlands Police, the Mosso d’esquadra and the British Consulate in Barcelona for their continued hard work.
‘As Levi’s 25th Birthday approaches next week, we continue to hope and pray that he is found safe and well.’
A spokesman for the Catalan Mossos d’Esquadra police force told Spanish media earlier this week there is no ‘logical’ explanation for Levi’s disappearance, adding it is now being treated as ‘disturbing’.
He said: ‘With the information at our disposal, it doesn’t appear that this person has gone missing voluntarily and doesn’t want to be found.
‘We’re dealing with an adult male whose disappearance doesn’t have a logical explanation and which we’re therefore treating as disturbing.
‘It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s been the victim of a crime and it’s important to clarify that the group that’s now investigating this person’s disappearance is not a murder squad or homicide unit because that would mean there is a probability or certainty he is dead.
‘What it is is a unit which has been tasked with this case following the initial investigation by officers at the station where this person was reported missing.
‘This case was initially investigated by a group of officers at the police station the disappearance was first reported to in Barcelona.
‘That’s the general procedure in cases where there are no obvious or very evident signs a disappearance is linked to a crime.
‘Now this case is being led by a specialist investigative unit based in Barcelona.
‘The officers working for the unit are specialised in dealing with disappearances that could be criminal and have been categorised that way because of their disturbing nature as well as the amount of time which has passed.’
Levi Davis was last seen leaving The Old Irish Pub in Barcelona on October 29
Missing posters have been plastered all over Barcelona in an effort to find Levi Davis
According to previous reports, Levi ran up a £100,000 debt to a Somali gang while living in London in 2020 and was kidnapped in Barcelona as a result.
He had been seeing friends in Ibiza before travelling to the city via a ferry to meet someone. He had only been there for a matter of hours before vanishing.
Private investigator Gavin Burrows whose Line of Inquiry firm is offering a £10,000 reward for information that could lead to Davis being found, says he is in receipt of an audio tape claiming a TV producer took compromising pictures of the rugby player-turned-reality star after he appeared on X Factor.
There is no suggestion whatsoever he worked for or had anything to do with the popular show or another reality TV show Davis appeared on the following year.
Mr Burrows claimed in a tweet: ‘Following Levi Davis’s case being brought to light, we have received valuable alleged information from a number of former participants and other fellow contestants over a number of years in the X Factor programme who have confirmed the claims made in Davis’s video seem to be true.’
Mr Burrows said he had retrieved Davis’s Instagram video claiming he had been blackmailed, which he first posted four days before he vanished, and released it with the agreement of family and friends to help get information.
The ex-Bath rugby player says at the start of the 15-minute footage: ‘Hello my name is Levi Davis and my life is in danger,’ before going on to allege he believed he was filmed performing various sexual acts after being drugged, which blackmailers have used to control and manipulate him.
He said: ‘I was told by them in ways which are not direct but are absolutely true that – if I said anything – they were going to attempt to kill me, threaten my family.
‘And they also were trying to frame me.’
Davis also alleges he gave police information about his manipulators, but that corrupt officers fed the information right back to them and refused to help him.
He said in the video clip that filming of him in ‘compromising positions’ while under the influence took place after he met an unnamed individual he began a relationship with and met regularly after completing his stint on X Factor in 2019.
At the time Davis, who made history by becoming the first rugby union player to come out as bisexual while still playing, is thought to have been competing on Celebs Go Dating as a straight man.
Mr Burrows said last month he is not convinced the blackmail Davis talked about was necessarily the cause of his disappearance, but it was something that needed to be properly investigated by police.
Although he and his team fear Davis may be dead and there has been a suggestion he could have drowned in Barcelona Port near to where his passport was found, he said today: ‘If he is alive we believe he could be in hiding, in an involuntary exile somewhere like a monastery, to protect himself from toxic individuals.’
Mr Burrows recently said he believed an arrest was imminent, claiming a man who was a friend of Davis’s had been obstructing his investigation and urging police to haul him in for questioning.
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