Spanish police have ended the search for missing raver Jay Slater, almost two weeks after the British teenager disappeared on the island of Tenerife.
19-year-old apprentice bricklayer Jay was last seen on June 17. A large-scale search with dogs, drones and a helicopter turned up no trace.
On Saturday, police made a final push and appealed for volunteers to help, but only six people turned up to join 24 mountain rescue and firefighting teams in the remote mountainous area of Masca.
A Tenerife Police spokesperson said: ‘The search has now been completed but the investigation is ongoing.’ The spokesperson did not want to say whether this was a criminal investigation.
The decision to end the search was taken at a high level after a meeting between investigators and mountain rescue teams at the island’s headquarters in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
On Saturday, one of the search teams told MailOnline: ‘Nothing has been found and now the chief will decide whether to proceed. It is up to the executives to decide. There is no set closing time.’
‘But of course we can’t keep searching forever. What we know is evaluated and then the senior researchers make a decision.’
Jay was last seen by a local resident in Masca in north-west Tenerife just after 8am on June 17, walking north along the road out of the village after stopping to ask her for directions.
Spanish police have ended the search for missing raver Jay Slater (centre) – almost two weeks after the British teenager disappeared on the island of Tenerife. He is pictured here with his mother, Debbie Duncan, and brother Zak
On Saturday, police launched a last-ditch effort and called for volunteers to help. Only six people showed up to join the 24 mountain rescue and fire teams in Masca.
Jay’s father Warren, along with Jay’s mother Debbie and a number of his friends, have flown to the Spanish island over the past two weeks to help
Spanish police and volunteers gather before searching the remote area yesterday
There has been no sign of Jay since he disappeared in Tenerife on June 17
The last time his phone rang was near a lookout point where search teams gathered yesterday to begin the final day of the operation.
Friend Lucy Law said Jay called her shortly after he was last seen to say he was thirsty, had no water with him and that his phone battery was down to one percent.
The Guardia Civil says the ‘parallel’ investigation by police detectives, about which they do not share information, continues despite the suspension of the ‘visible’ mountain search in and around Masca.
After partying on the final night of the three-day NRG festival in Tenerife’s Playa de las Americas resort, Jay returned to an Airbnb in Masca with two men he met on holiday, where he sent two Snapchat messages to his friends.
Ofelia Medina Hernandez, the owner of the villa, said she saw Jay standing at a nearby bus stop around 8 a.m.
He asked her when the next bus to Los Cristianos would leave, but when he was told it wouldn’t be until 10 a.m., he set off on foot. It would be an 11 hour walk.
Jay’s father, Warren Slater, said yesterday he was “disappointed” after only a handful of volunteers joined the hunt for his son.
Only six volunteers, including British TikTok mountaineer Paul Arnott and a few Spaniards, joined the search on Saturday, in temperatures around 23 degrees.
“It’s a bit disappointing that there aren’t any Brits apart from Paul, but I guess to them he’s just a British guy who came over here and got drunk,” Warren said.
The father said he was “grateful” to the people who came to search for his son.
“You see how dangerous it is and what strikes me are the trolls who attack us because we don’t look,” he said.
Police said yesterday that two mystery British men who were with Jay the night he disappeared were ‘irrelevant’ to their investigation.
After partying on the final night of the three-day NRG festival in Tenerife’s Playa de las Americas resort, Jay had returned to an Airbnb in Masca with two men he had met on holiday.
Guardia Civil officer Cipriano Martin has confirmed that the two mystery men who invited Jay Slater back to their Airbnb hours before he disappeared ‘have no relevance whatsoever to the case’
Spanish police yesterday began a final search for Jay
TV detective Mark Williams Thomas previously called on the two mystery men who were with missing teenager Jay Slater to come forward
The development surprised many as TV detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who worked on the missing persons cases of Madeleine McCann and Nicola Bulley, described the men as ‘key witnesses’ and called on them to come forward.
Cipriano Martin, head of the Spanish Guardia Civil mountain rescue team in Tenerife, said: “These men have been spoken to and they have no relevance to the case.”
However, little is known about the two mystery men, who have not spoken publicly, other than the fact that they are British, black and in their late 30s to early 40s.
One is said to go by the nickname Johnny Vegas and the other is described as being about 6 feet tall, stocky and with short dark hair. He was seen wearing an orange wristband, but little else is known about the other man.
