The answer is clear enough. He leaves the galley, continues through the narrow, oblong messroom and into the lounge. There he gathers the crew for a meeting. The proposition he now wants to make can have consequences he would prefer to avoid.
“Worst case scenario we will be at sea for two years. The food is going to decline and we really don’t know how this is going to end,” he says.
Then he gives the crew a choice. They can stay on, continuing the chase and be stuck at sea for several months, in the worst case, for years.
“The Sam Simon will be here in two weeks. Those who want, can sail with her to Mauritius and travel home from there,” he says.
When he leaves the lounge, Hammarstedt prays a silent prayer that the chief engineer will not abandon the ship. Erwin Vermeulen is his most trusted man and probably the only ship’s engineer in the world who is a vegan. He is also a dedicated and loyal activist who spent 64 days in custody in a Japanese remand prison for an altercation with a dolphin trainer.
Peter Hammarstedt gives the crew 24 hours to decide whether they want to continue on the chase or leave the Bob Barker.
21
LA MAFIA GALLEGA
BARCELONA AND RIBEIRA, FEBRUARY 2015
He is quiet-mannered in a way that awakens suspicions of his knowing far more than he is willing to tell.
It is early in the morning. We meet him at a nondescript office in an office complex on the outskirts of Barcelona. The private eye of some 50 years does not want to be identified by name. We can call him Luis. All his activities involve his being anonymous and faceless, and that is how he wants it to stay. He hangs up his brown leather jacket; it is shapeless and worn. Then he gets some coffee from the coffee machine, the only fixture in the otherwise empty office premises, with the exception of the photocopier, which appears extravagant.
Out at sea, infinitely far from the enterprising Barcelona morning, the chase is in its second month. The Thunder and the Bob Barker have switched off the engines and are circling one another in a calm dance.
“The owners of all the pirate vessels are Spanish. And they are from Galicia. But it is almost impossible to get to the bottom of the ownership structure,” Luis says.1
For many years he has been investigating narcotics smugglers and pirate ship owners in the Spanish province.
“Everyone in Galicia knows what is going on in Ribeira, but nobody says anything. It is like the omertà code of honour in Italy,” he says.
“A Corleone near the ocean?”
“The Corleone gang are like young children compared to the people in Galicia. Galicia is a region run by criminals. Before they lived off fishing. Now it’s narcotics and tobacco,” Luis the Catalonian says.
“Is there anyone who can talk?”
“Travelling to Ribeira and asking about pirate fishermen is like going to Naples and asking who stole a lorry. Everyone knows, but nobody says anything. Even for our local contacts it is almost impossible to acquire information. We have tried, but those who talk risk ending up in serious trouble.”
“How dangerous are they?”
For a moment he doesn’t speak, and then places the palms of his hands on the table.
“Some of the pirate fishermen use the same channels as the narcotics smugglers. They can be extremely dangerous. But if you go to a tapas bar in Ribeira, stand beers and a dinner with prostitutes, it could be that you will learn who is in business or not,” Luis says.
“I don’t know much about the Thunder. But I have heard that the ship is owned from Galicia,” he continues.
In the course of the chase, a number of the well-known pirate ship owners in Galicia have been designated as the owner of the Thunder. Vidal Armadores in Ribeira is a candidate. The Panama-registered company Trancoeiro Fishing is as well. According to the company documents from Panama, Trancoeiro Fishing is run by the Spanish citizens Manuel Martínez Martínez and the brothers Juan Antonio and José Manuel Argibay Pérez, all of whom are from Galicia. And each of them has a criminal record from the poaching of toothfish.
When we call Martínez, we receive the following answer:
“The Thunder? Then you must go to Ribeira to speak with Vidal Armadores.”
Another Panama company – Estelares – could also be the owner of the wanted ship. Estelares appeared for the first time in the Thunder saga when the ship was registered in Togo in 2006. Estelares was also registered as owner of the ship on an insurance policy and when the vessel changed flags in 2010. On paper, the company’s management consists of two lawyers in Panama, but they deny having anything to do with the operations of Estelares.2
“The real owner of Estelares is Florindo González from Galicia,” the private eye Luis says as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“I don’t have any documents that prove it, but I am 100 per cent sure that he owns Estelares. He is a powerful figure in Galicia,” he adds, before planting the palms of his hands on the table as if to signal that the conversation is over.
“There’s one more problem,” Luis says before we go our separate ways.
“And that is?”
“In Galicia it is difficult to get people to talk but finding them is worse. The addresses are a nightmare. Like this one: ‘The square up in the mountains, right before you reach the ocean, house number 3.’”
You have arrived when the dust from the dry, red soil of Castilla y León lies behind you and you can smell the scent of the ocean, wet moss and eucalyptus. Galicia is perhaps the least described and most slandered of Spain’s provinces, an illegitimate child one does not want on display. A number of Spain’s powerful noble families come from here. They received their titles as a reward
