The remains of a missing man are believed to have been found in the stomach of a shark after his family identified him through a tattoo.
Diego Barria, a 32-year-old father of three, was last seen riding his all-terrain vehicle near the coast of Argentina’s southern Chubut province on 18 February.
The damaged vehicle was located on February 20 on a beach near Rocas Coloradas, but there was no sign of Barría and an intense search began to try to locate him.
Early on Sunday morning, two fishermen told the coastguard that they had fished three school sharks close to where Barría’s vehicle was located “and when they were cleaning them they found human remains in one of them”, police said.
Daniela Millatruz, the officer in charge of the search for Mr Barria, said family members identified Barría “due to a tattoo that appeared in one of those remains”.
The remains will also undergo DNA testing to officially confirm that they belong to Barría, Cristian Ansaldo, who heads up the police department in the city of Comodoro Rivadavia, said in an interview with local media.
The school shark in which the human remains were found measured around 1.5 meters (4.9 feet), Mr Ansaldo said.
The most likely hypothesis that investigators are currently working with is that Mr Barría “had an accident and was dragged,” Mr Ansaldo said, noting there had been a strong tidal surge the weekend when he disappeared.
“My heart went with you! I love you forever,” Virginia Brugger, who was identified as Mr Barría’s partner and had been posting updates on the search on social media, wrote on Facebook on Sunday.
