{"id":662902,"date":"2026-06-28T14:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T14:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/662902\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T14:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T14:49:11","slug":"british-man-held-after-womans-body-found-in-suitcase-in-colombia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/662902\/","title":{"rendered":"British man held after woman&#8217;s body found in suitcase in Colombia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A British man has been arrested in Ecuador after the body of a woman was found inside a suitcase in Colombia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Matthew Ashley Foster-Smith, 46, from Bournemouth, Dorset, is alleged to have caused the death of 36-year-old Natalia Villalba in an apartment in Bogota on 18 June, local authorities said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Attorney General&#8217;s Office in Colombia said Foster-Smith was suspected of beating Villalba to death before placing her body in a suitcase, attempting to conceal what happened, and fleeing the scene.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">An arrest warrant was obtained by prosecutors in Colombia and an Interpol Red Notice was issued, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Foster-Smith was held at Quito International Airport in Ecuador.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Bogota&#8217;s mayor, Carlos Fernando Galan, said Dorset Police had assisted with the operation to locate him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A Foreign, Commonwealth &amp; Development Office spokesperson said: &#8220;We are supporting a British man who has been detained in Ecuador and are in touch with the local authorities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dorset Police has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British man has been arrested in Ecuador after the body of a woman was found inside a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-662902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}