Spanish police have ended their search for missing raver Jay Slater, almost two weeks after the British teenager disappeared on the island of Tenerife.
Apprentice bricklayer Jay, 19, was last seen on June 17 and an extensive search using dogs, drones and a helicopter failed to find any trace.
On Saturday police launched a last-ditch effort and called for volunteers to help and only six turned up to join the 24 mountain rescue and fire brigade teams in Masca.
A Tenerife police spokesman said: “The search has ended but the investigation remains open.”
The spokesman declined to give details about whether this was now a criminal investigation.
The decision to end the search after almost two weeks was taken at a high level following 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 was found and now the boss will decide whether to continue or not. It’s up to the higher-ups to decide, there is no set time limit.
“But obviously we can’t keep looking forever, so what we know will be evaluated and then senior investigators will make that decision.”
Jay was last seen by a local resident in Masca, north-west Tenerife, shortly after 8am on June 17, walking north on the road out of the town after stopping to ask her for directions.
His phone rang for the last time near a viewing point where search teams gathered yesterday to begin the final day of the operation.
His friend Lucy Law said Jay had called her shortly after he was last seen to say he was thirsty and had no water and only had one per cent battery left on his phone.
The Civil Guard assures that the “parallel” investigation carried out by police investigators, about which they do not share information, continues despite the suspension of the “visible” search in the Masca mountain and its surroundings.
Spanish police have ended their search for missing raver Jay Slater, nearly two weeks after the British teenager vanished on the island of Tenerife.
On Saturday, police launched a last-ditch effort and called for volunteers to help, but only six came forward to join the 24 mountain rescue and firefighting teams in Masca.
After partying the final night of the three-day NRG festival in the Tenerife resort of Playa de las Americas, Jay had returned to an Airbnb in the remote village of Masca with two men he had met on holiday. It was there that he sent two Snapchat messages to his friends.
It would have taken him 11 hours to return to his accommodation on foot.
Police revealed yesterday that two mystery British men who were with Jay on the night he disappeared were “not relevant” to their investigation.
The development raised eyebrows among many as television detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who worked on the Madeleine McCann and Nicola Bulley missing persons cases, described the men as “key witnesses” and asked them to come forward.
Cipriano Martin, head of the Spanish Civil Guard’s Mountain Rescue team in Tenerife, said: “These men have been spoken to and 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 30s or 40s.
One of them is said to call himself Johnny Vegas and the other is about 1.80 metres tall, stocky and with short dark hair. He was seen wearing an orange bracelet, but not much else is known about the other man.
Civil Guard agent Cipriano Martín has confirmed that the two mysterious men who invited Jay Slater to his Airbnb hours before he disappeared “have no relevance to the case.”
The news about the two men came as the search for Jay intensified today after a new manhunt was launched after Spanish police opened the operation to volunteers for the first time.
Television detective Mark Williams Thomas previously asked the two mystery men who were with missing teenager Jay Slater to come forward.
