RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Agustín Álvarez took a plane in Madrid bound for Brazil on October 25th.
At the age of 29, the various navigation licenses he owned – the last one, a speedboat pilot – in his hometown of Vigo (Pontevedra, Spain) would serve him to accomplish the most risky mission of his life: to cross from America to Europe in a 20-meter long semi-submersible vessel from stern to bow carrying 3,000 kilos of cocaine on board.
A speedy course in river navigation, two Ecuadorians with nautical experience as crossing colleagues, 20,000 liters of fuel, a payment of US$100,000 (R$408,000) in advance and a 9,000-kilometer destination: a 3,000-kilometer river trip plus 6,000 across the Atlantic to Galicia.
“They sailed down the river from some remote location in the region of Leticia,” capital of the department of Amazonas and extreme south of Colombia, say sources from the National Police, which is continuing its investigation beyond the Galician borders: “It has been expanded to Madrid and Colombia”.
“The rough sea when it reached the Spanish coast and the engine malfunctions, in addition to the fact that no one showed up to collect the goods, caused them to sink the vessel on the beach of Hío (Pontevedra) and try to escape, but their plan was to return to recover the drugs later,” say sources of the investigation of the so-called Operation Baluma, headed by Sonia Platas, chief of the Cangas de Morrazo Court of Investigation No. 1.
The same sources point to the current major clans of the Galician drug trade, “El Burro and El Pastelero” as the main suspects.
Álvarez was a key player in this almost suicidal mission, as can be inferred from the statement that the crew gave to cellmates and prison staff since they refused to testify to the police. There were engine failures (“new and 2,000 horsepower,” according to sources of the investigation), ventilation problems on the ship and even the loss of food and water they were carrying.
“There were only a few chocolates left when they arrived,” say sources of the investigation. “Before trying to escape, they got rid of the satellite phone and the electronic equipment they were carrying, which were never found,” they add.
They spent 26 days in a small vessel that could submerge to a depth of two meters to avoid the Navy’s radar and sleeping in cots over 152 packages of drugs. They had good weather almost until they reached Spain, according to their statements, but on the tenth day, the first mechanical problem appeared. The two tubes coming out of the stern, which serve to inject air into the engine, broke.
According to their reports, the air in the submarine became unbreathable. Unable to repair it, although one of the Ecuadorians was a mechanic, they were forced to open the hatch for a few hours a day to ventilate the ship until it reached land.
Before – and always according to what was reported by the crew in prison – in a sea disturbance they also lost the food and water bag that the ship carried pre-tied and connected to the hull.
And finally, the oil tank broke, which soaked the whole ship, including the cocaine packages.
In the end, desperate, after a first unsuccessful attempt to approach the coast in the city of Porto (Portugal), and after several days getting different coordinates from the organization to deliver the goods without anyone showing up, they tried to escape swimming in neoprene suits on the beach of Hío, part of Aldán (Cangas de Morrazo).
Following an alert by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) linked to the US Department of Justice, the extensive police operation mobilized in the region put an end to the crew members’ pretensions.
The first thing Pedro Roberto Delgado (Ecuador, 1975) and Luis Tomás Benítez (Ecuador, 1977) asked when they entered the prison was to comb their hair. Prison sources describe them: “Quiet, shy and suspicious.” They also wanted to know when the summer in Galicia was starting because it would not stop raining.
In his private escape, Agustín Álvarez remained hidden in a shed during the four days following the imprisonment of his two Ecuadorian colleagues. Before that, he used his cell phone and eased the arrest of three other people: his cousin Iago Serantes (Vigo, 1991), his uncle Enrique Serantes (Vigo, 1965) and a friend, Rodrigo Hermida (Santiago de Compostela, 1993).
“Agustín asked his cousin for help and he, in turn, called his father and Hermida to pick him up at the place on the coast where he was hiding,” say sources of the investigation who analyzed the calls from his phone.
After helping him, Serantes fled to Valencia, where he was arrested at the airport. The large police operation deployed at the river mouth then intercepted his uncle and friend, who was carrying dry clothes in backpacks.
Finally, Álvarez was arrested, trying to pass himself off as an illegal shellfisherman. The officers pretended to believe him, let him pass and followed him until they arrested him later.
“The organization looked for a young man like Álvarez, with maritime skills and a good knowledge of the intricate Galician coast, with no criminal record, who wouldn’t raise any suspicions,” sources say.
The same sources, however, warn that the absence of a criminal record does not imply that he was not involved in the drug trafficking business: “If he was sought and sent to Brazil a month before the shipment of the goods, it is because he was already moving in the circuits,” they say.
Álvarez, according to the same sources, has no known job. “A young sportsman, in love with the sea and who also had a pilot’s license,” they add.
According to his own account, however, Agustín was not the drug traffickers’ first choice. Rather, they offered it to another Galician sailor, who finally refused because he thought the vessel did not have adequate conditions.
“Built specifically for this purpose in some clandestine shipyard in the jungles of Suriname and Guyana,” according to the investigators, the crew carried out the drill with the semi-submersible along the Amazon River on its way to the sea”.
“The hull, similar to that of a sailboat, was damaged at the bow tie”, which makes the investigators suspect that it was towed along some stretches of that river path. The police are certain that the submarine performed the whole sea crossing in one go, without refueling or towing it at sea.
This is also the inference from the testimonies of the imprisoned crew members. Other sources, however, point to the possibility that it may have been helped by other boats.
The capture on November 24th of the first narco-submarine that reached Europe from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean confirmed suspicions that had grown into legend for more than a decade.
Intelligence on the arrival of a submersible loaded with Colombian cocaine reached the Center for Intelligence against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO) through the Center for Marine Analysis (MAOC), based in Lisbon and by British authorities, so a major joint operation by the National Police, Civil Guard, and Customs Surveillance was planned.
The investigation is ongoing.
Source: El Pais