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Jay Slater’s dad demands Interpol & Brit cops step in to help search & warns it’d take ‘an army 10 years’ to scour area
The family have widened their search for the missing teen after three weeks
JAY Slater's dad has pleaded with Interpol and British cops to help with the search for his missing son.
Distraught Warren Slater, 58, returned to the mountainous region where the 19-year-old vanished three weeks ago as he warned it would take "an army 10 years" to search the whole area.
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Jay's family have been scouring the area where the apprentice builder's phone last pinged on June 17 but are yet to find a trace of the missing Brit.
Speaking to The Sun Warren said: "As a family, we need to ask the British authorities to help. He's a British citizen. Get Interpol involved.
“At the moment, it’s just us. I haven’t got a team. We need a team to come over here and find out for us what the police are doing and what we need to do.
"Our hands are tied over here - we need experts.
“It’ll take an army 10 years to cover all this. I’d employ a team of Gurkhas."
He also called on British cops to interview Ayub Qassim, 31 - a convicted drug dealer who was among the last people to see Jay before he vanished.
Our hands are tied over here - we need experts. It’ll take an army 10 years to cover all this
Warren Slater
Jay, who was on his first lads holiday with two pals left the thriving Tenerife party strip with Qassim late at night and headed to a remote Airbnb.
Alongside a third man, Jay spent the night at the £40-a-night home in Masca.
Most read in The Sun
The Airbnb was just a 30 minute drive from Los Cristianos where the teen was staying.
Fresh theories have suggested Jay lost the key to his room leading to him looking for a new place to stay after his pals went home early.
Jay Slater's Dad furious over search
Messages from Ayub, seen by The Sun, show that Jay had complained to him about losing his key on the night out.
After waking up the following morning, Jay left the Airbnb despite Ayub saying he offered him a lift back to Los Cristianos.
Jay, who reportedly said he was going to find some food, left the house alone as he embarked on what would have been an 11-hour trek back to his apartment.
The Lancashire lad made a panicked call to pal Lucy Mae Law, 18, later in the morning to say he was "lost in the middle of nowhere".
He also claimed to have no water and only one per cent left on his phone.
Jay hasn't been seen since with his family calling for extra resources to be thrown at the search.
Spanish authorities launched a mammoth two week search for Jay only to be left without a trace.
Prompting them to call it off on Sunday 30.
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Warren, Zak and Jay's mum, Debbie Duncan have vowed to stay in Tenerife for the foreseeable future in the hope of a breakthrough in the case.
Exhausted Warren told how he and the family feel like they have been kept in the dark by Spanish cops throughout the hunt.
The family, who have since been joined by Jay's uncle Glen Duncan, took matters into their own hands after the search was halted as they continued the hunt on foot.
After a week of scouring the mountains region of Masca, Warren said the family are now expanding their search area.
Explaining the decision he said: "I’ve been through 80 per cent of the valley, so we went further along.
“We’ve done the valley where his phone pinged. We’ve been on two wild goose chases to abandoned buildings.
"Now, we’ve gone up the road to a vantage point, there’s cliffs there and there’s a valley and a village there.
"Where we’ve been today you can see there’s a hikers path with proper stones. We’ve gone straight down and you end up in the village."
Warren added he "can't understand" why his son would veer off the road and into the dangerous valleys close to his missing child's last known location, the Mirror reports.
"It doesn't make sense, he's either hid himself, but why would he hide himself? Or he's just ....?," he said.
According to the Manchester Evening News, he found it difficult to understand why someone would choose the obvious route rather than go through the thick vegetation.
"All I'm thinking is common sense, would you try and walk through there," he said.
"Where we've been today you can see there's a hikers path with proper stones. We've gone straight down and you end up in the village. I'd go into the first building you see.
"An ideal spot for shelter is that little cave isn't it, get a bit of shade, you're hungover, get your head down in there. The police are convinced that's where his last ping were".
He added: "From the bnb, he's a fit lad, 25 minutes you can get to the top, to where the cafe is. If he's followed the road and been where we've been today, it's took him an hour and a half.
"Dozens of cars would have gone past him. We got here at 9am and the 10am bus passed us. And it would have passed him. I've been up here three weeks and I've never seen as many cars."
Read more on the Irish Sun
The Sun revealed on Sunday how the Slaters hope to use the more than £50,000 raised on their GoFundMe to pay for a new private search.
Spanish cops have said the investigation remains ongoing with them continuing to follow any leads that may come in despite halting the ground search.
THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF JAY SLATER
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
Monday July 8 marks three weeks since Jay Slater, a 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, vanished in Tenerife.
The apprentice bricklayer, who flew out to the popular holiday island for a rave festival with friends Lucy Law and Brad Page, has made headlines around the country.
On Sunday June 16 the three of them headed off to one of the events at Papagayo nightclub.
In the early hours of Monday 17 - Lucy and Brad were ready to head back to their hotel, but Jay wanted to keep partying.
It was then that he left the south of the island and headed to an Airbnb in the northwest with two British men.
The Sun revealed the identity of one of them - convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, who spent nine years behind bars in the UK.
For days it was thought that the second mystery man went by the name ‘Johnny Vegas’.
On Sunday former detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who is out in Tenerife investigating, said Qassim told him he is in fact the man behind the nickname ‘Johnny Vegas’.
We don’t yet know the identity of the second man - who remains a key part of the puzzle in Jay’s mysterious disappearance.
Qassim claims he drove Jay and the friend back to their accommodation and said they all went to sleep.
In the morning he offered to drive the teen back to the Los Cristianos resort after a nap, but Jay, hungry and tired, said he wanted to leave immediately.
Lucy, the last person to speak to Jay, claims she had a panicked call from him soon after he left the holiday let, telling her he was lost and thirsty, his phone was about to die and that he’d been cut by a cactus.
Jay had been seen by the owner of the Airbnb that morning wandering around near the Rural de Teno park - a mountainous region close-by.
He is believed to have been attempting the 11-hour trek back to his hotel, despite the alleged offer of a lift and more buses scheduled for the day.
It was there that his phone last pinged - and he hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
Mark Williams-Thomas has claimed he left the Airbnb quickly, and was “scared”.
Bizarrely, Qassim says he was woken up that morning by a phone call from an unnamed friend of Jay, saying he was “in a ditch” somewhere and had been “cut by a cactus”.
Jay’s friend Lucy claimed to have “tracked down” the two men in the Airbnb after he vanished - quizzing them on the morning of Jay’s disappearance.
Some reports have suggested Lucy knew the two men, although it is not clear how.
She has dubbed his disappearance “weird and suspicious”.
Both men were questioned by Spanish cops on June 17 but quickly deemed “irrelevant” to the investigation and cleared to fly back to the UK.
Police spent almost two weeks searching for Jay in the Tenerife mountains, scouring a 2,000ft ravine, before calling it off on Sunday June 30.
Jay’s family have repeatedly slammed the Spanish investigation into his bizarre disappearance.
His uncle, Glen Duncan, is convinced of “third party involvement”.
And the teen’s devastated dad, Warren Slater, says “everything stinks”
He told The Sun: "My starting position, I’ve said this from day one, ask the two men who’ve taken him - and then start from there."
A number of unanswered questions remain, over why Jay would have travelled so far with two older men he didn’t know, why said men would have taken him in, and why he braved the Tenerife mountains with no phone battery, water or heat protection for a day-long walk.
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