SANTA CRUZ (KRON) – The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office has identified the body found Tuesday as Tushar Atre, the man who was kidnapped from his Pleasure Point home.
Atre, 50, was kidnapped from his house on Pleasure Point Drive at around 3 a.m. Tuesday.
“We know that he was kidnapped during an intended robbery but we don’t know what exactly led to his eventual murder,” said Ashley Keehn, Santa Cruz Sheriff’s spokesperson.
Deputies received a 911 call from inside the residence saying that he had been taken from the home and was last seen in a white BMW.
Later Tuesday, deputies found the BMW along with a body in the 24000 block of Soquel San Jose Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office has since identified the body as Atre.
Officials did not release the cause of the death.
The investigation is ongoing but police say they believe the motive was robbery.
Atre was the owner of digital marketing company Atrenet.
A self-described high-tech entrepreneur, Atre’s Instagram posts include him playing a guitar in his ocean front home along with several other outdoor shots.
The man is also the owner of a licensed cannabis manufacturing facility on Fern Street.
The sheriff’s office declined to say if the cannabis business is somehow connected to the kidnapping.
“Still a lot of moving parts in this investigation. We do know that Mr. Atre was connected to the cannabis industry, but we don’t know if that is related to his kidnapping,” Keehn said.
The sheriff’s office says there have been arrests in this case and that “more than one” suspects remain.
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