A British man has been shot dead on Spain’s Costa Blanca in the latest of a series of violent crimes that have rocked the popular holiday coastline. An Alicante-based Civil Guard specialist homicide unit was last night probing the murder of the 29-year-old, whose bullet-riddled body was found at a residential property in an area known as Campoamor in Orihuela Costa, just north of the popular tourist resort of Torrevieja.

News of the latest killing comes just less than three weeks after a Brit cheated death after being shot at least three times in an underground car park in the same area. Detectives are probing whether the two crimes and others in recent months involving British and Irish nationals on the Costa Blanca are related. News of the murder of the unnamed 29-year-old Brit started emerging on Sunday night (December 28), although his body is understood to have been discovered on December 21 on a residential estate called Lomas del Garbinet, which is part of the Campoamor area.

Local police are said to have been tipped off by friends of the victim that “something serious” had happened to him and found his bloodied body after going to the property flagged up to them.

Civil Guard detectives are understood to be treating it as a drugs-related crime. No arrests have yet taken place.

In the botched assassination attempt on December 11, around 15 bullets were reportedly fired at a 32-year-old British man’s vehicle in a residential area of Orihuela Costa called Lomas de Cabo Roig. The victim was rushed to Torrevieja University Hospital and admitted to an intensive care ward. The man targeted was later identified locally as one of the two Brits arrested and still being investigated over an armed robbery last year at a cannabis club in nearby San Fulgencio.

He had been allowed to leave prison on bail around a fortnight before he was targeted, nearly seven months after being remanded in custody following his arrest in April, when he allegedly tried to escape police by taking an elderly couple hostage in their own homes.

Civil Guard detectives are investigating the shooting as a probable settling of scores between rival gangs.

In May, an Irishman was critically injured after being shot in the head close to a nearby shopping centre called La Zenia Boulevard. Two suspects were arrested a fortnight later on suspicion of attempted murder. A month later, a second 29-year-old Irishman was stabbed in the neck from behind as he was having a pee near the same shopping centre and left needing an emergency life-saving operation. A 58-year-old Irishman was arrested over the knife attack in July.

On January 7, the body of Belfast-born father-of-one John George was found in an orchard in Rojales near Torrevieja after anguished appeals by his family following his disappearance the previous month. Two men were arrested and are currently on bail, including suspected killer Johnny Smyth, also from Belfast.

Despite being held on an international arrest warrant in March at an Airbnb in northern Portugal after fleeing his Costa Blanca expat home and being extradited to Spain the following month, Smyth was told he could leave his remand cell earlier this month after paying €100,000 (£87,100) bail.