Police in Santa Cruz, California, announced on Wednesday that they had found the body of Tushar Atre, an Indian-origin tech entrepreneur, inside a car little more than a day after he was kidnapped from his luxury home.
Atre (50) was the founder of web-designing company AtreNet and was considered to be a millionaire. He lived in a luxury house facing the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz. According to its Linkedin profile, AtreNet has “been serving the web design and development needs of many of the most innovative and successful high tech companies in Silicon Valley since 1996”.
Atre's girlfriend reportedly called police around 3am on Tuesday, claiming multiple men had forced him into her white BMW SUV after invading their house. After launching an intense search operation, police found the missing vehicle in the Santa Cruz mountains on Tuesday with the body inside it. A day later, the police formally confirmed the identity of the deceased as Atre.
The local sheriff's office in Santa Cruz claimed that they suspected robbery may have been a motive in the crime.
KPIX-TV, a local TV news channel affiliated to CBS, quoted a friend of Atre as saying he had “made enemies over his business deals”. The channel also referred to reviews on Glassdoor, an employment review site, which allegedly projected Atre as being an abusive boss.
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The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported on Wednesday that the police were investigating Atre's death as a homicide and were seeking “multiple assailants”. The Santa Cruz Sentinel also mentioned Atre was co-owner of a cannabis operation in the area, but it was “unclear” whether this was a factor in the crime.