Andorra's 2006 Restaurant Massacre: Unsolved Links to Dead Crime Figures

Two decades after a Chinese national shot dead two Andorran men at a restaurant in the Hotel Roc de Caldes in Escaldes-Engordany before killing himself, the case remains one of Andorra's most notorious episodes of violence.

The shootings occurred on 23 February 2006 during a lunch between Alain Solsona, 52, and his son-in-law Marc Solé, 31. Xu Hainan (also reported as Xu Huainan), a 42-year-old Chinese resident of Barcelona who owned a clothing shop on Carrer Trafalgar, joined their table. Between 2pm and 3:45pm, Hainan briefly left and returned to fire shots into the heads of both men in front of other diners, destroying his mobile phone's SIM card before turning the gun on himself. Witnesses fled the hotel dining room as police launched a major investigation.

Investigators recovered a rare Marian pistol, 7.65mm calibre, manufactured between 1938 and 1940 and prized by collectors. Hainan had a prior Spanish conviction for illegal arms possession, trafficking, and sales. Early theories centred on revenge over business disputes in construction, fuelled by Hainan's gambling problems. Solsona had faced repeated legal issues for decades, while Solé was a Partit Liberal Andorrà (PLA) member, listed ninth on the La Massana slate led by Josep Maria Camp, which defeated Socialdemòcrates + Independents (Martí Bayona) and Grup Democràtic Parroquial (Josep Garrallà).

Unsubstantiated rumours linked Hainan to Chinese Triads, claiming they ordered his death over financial losses to the group.

The incident fits into Andorra's limited history of serious crime, including a 2000 homophobic knife murder of Nuno Miguel Ribeiro behind a cava in Escaldes-Engordany and a 2004 stabbing of a 48-year-old Russian businessman at his Soldeu hotel, which carried mafia overtones. That case ended in 2018 with the acquittal of a 53-year-old Israeli-Ukrainian suspect due to insufficient evidence.

Connections persisted. Joan Coromina, 61, a former Solsona associate known as "el Pla" in Spain's Noguera area or "el Coro" in Andorra, was shot in the chest in January 2022 on a Baronia de Rialb property. An excavator operator found his body after receiving no response while working nearby. From Oliana but no longer resident there, Coromina dealt in agricultural machinery, land sales, and property brokering on legal edges, akin to rural fixers who navigate courts and councils for commissions.

Joan Prados Piedra, 68, an Andorran with shared business history alongside Solsona and Coromina, died in unclear circumstances on 15 July 2019 at a motel he managed in Tunja, Colombia. Though initially deemed suicide, murder remained possible. Acquitted with nine others in Andorra's 2012 money-laundering trial—linked to alleged drug trafficking—due to flawed phone taps, he had over €3 million frozen in Andorra.

All four men—Solsona, Solé, Coromina, and Prados—are now dead.