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An American college student visiting friends for spring break in Spain has gone missing, his family said.
James “Jimmy” Gracey, a 20-year-old student at the University of Alabama, was last seen by a friend around 3 a.m. local time on Tuesday outside of Barcelona’s Shoko restaurant and nightclub, his mother said in a Facebook post, pleading for the public’s help to find him.
“My college aged son is visiting friends who are studying abroad. The [sic] went to Shoko last night. The police have his phone but he never made it back to his air bnb,” Therese Marren Gracey wrote in the Barcelona Expat Families Facebook group.
She did not explain how the police came into possession of her son’s cellphone.
Gracey, of Elmhurst, Ill., was wearing a white T-shirt, dark pants and a gold chain with a rhinestone cross on it when he went missing, according to his mother. He is approximately six foot one and weighs 175 pounds, she added.
He was reported missing after he failed to return to his Airbnb on Wednesday morning.
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School officials from Chicago’s Saint Ignatius College Prep, where Gracey graduated, shared a statement on Facebook, writing, “The Saint Ignatius community is praying for the safe return of Jimmy Gracey ’23.”
The Catalonia Police said they are conducting the “initial checks and have taken a report in an open investigation.”
“A call was received early yesterday morning, around 1:00 AM, reporting a possible disappearance. The disappearance was reported to have occurred on March 17, 2026, at 3:00 AM, in the Port Olímpic area,” the Catalonia Police said to NBC News.
Global News has reached out to the Catalonia Police for further information.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
