For decades the Spanish authorities have been accused of protecting the fishing mafia. Now there is another tone. The new law that gives the authorities the right to fine any Spaniard who has demonstrably had dealings with a vessel that is fishing illegally is brought to “Toño’s” attention.
When the officers leave Vidal Armadores’ head office on the afternoon of 11 March 2015, they are carrying more than 3,000 documents. The contents of the cardboard boxes will prove disastrous for the Vidal family.
At his spacious office in Madrid, Assistant Director Héctor Villa González is anxiously waiting in the inspection department of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment for the results of the raid in Ribeira.
He has already learned one thing: the next time they are going to raid a shipping company under suspicion for poaching fish, they will be accompanied by policemen who can break down the door. But the take is nonetheless formidable. Based on the confiscated documents, the 17 DVDs of data the Australian authorities confiscated on the Kunlun and information from Interpol, New Zealand and Belize, they can reconstruct a number of the missions of the Vidal ships in the Antarctic. The documents also provide unique insight on how the ship owners have organized their business.1
The toothfish expeditions to the Antarctic have been led from the office in Ribeira. From there the shipping company has planned the expeditions, recruited crew, bought equipment and supplies and paid for fuel and insurance. To cover up the tracks of the illegal fishing activities, the family has constructed a conglomerate of companies in Europe and Latin America. The owners of the four ships that can be connected to the Vidal family’s Antarctic expeditions, the Kunlun, Songhua, Yongding and Tiantai, have been companies in the tax havens of Panama and Belize. It is also through these companies that the Vidal family has hired crew for the missions. But what has happened to all the money?
Only the name of one company could be seen on the facade of the Vidal office in Ribeira: Proyectos y Desarrollos Renovables – renewable projects and development.
In recent years the Vidal family has invested heavily in the local community – and they have invested for the future. In the neighbouring municipality, Manual Antonio Vidal Pego opened a windmill park in 2013. Leaders of the province and local mayors attended the formal inauguration ceremony. In another neighbouring municipality, the family has established a large fish oil factory that has received EUR 6.6 million in subsidies from the EU, the Spanish government and local authorities in Galicia. After having ruined the city’s reputation, the Vidal family would rise again as environmentally conscious and innovative investors in the local community. They would create jobs and be applauded by the authorities.
In Madrid Villa González studies the confusing company chart the officers have drawn. Towards the bottom of the pyramid he finds something strange – a company in the tax haven of Switzerland. Manuel Antonio Vidal Pego, his brother Angel “Naño” Vidal Pego and an experienced Swiss investment manager have seats on the board. The company from the mountainous country without a coastline is listed as being a specialty wholesaler of fish, crawfish and molluscs. Has the Vidal family brought money back to Spain via Switzerland, for subsequent investment in renewable energy and the fish oil industry? Villa González wonders. It can appear so.
Villa González sits down at the desk and takes out a calculator. Based on the appraisals, they know too little about the total sales volume of the Vidal family’s Antarctic fleet over the course of 20 years, but estimate that the family in a two-year period has sold illegally caught toothfish for at least EUR 17 million.
As he is trying to figure out a suitable punishment, Villa González has already started planning the next raid. Against the ship owner he suspects of owning the Thunder.
27
EXERCISE GOOD HOPE
OSLO/LAGOS/CAPE TOWN, MARCH 2015
“I think they’re going to round the Cape,” an elated Peter Hammarstedt says on the bridge of the Bob Barker.
The two ships are 400 nautical miles south of the African continent. After having drifted for weeks, suddenly the Thunder picks up speed heading west. Is this the end game? Hammarstedt wonders.
“Should we get our hopes up this early, Peter?” the third mate Anteo Broadfield asks.
“What’s the point in having hopes if you’re not going to get them up once in a while,” Hammarstedt replies.
He feels certain the Thunder does not have enough fuel to make it back to a harbour in Southeast Asia. It is likely that the chase will end somewhere or other along the west coast of Africa, perhaps in Namibia or Angola. Spanish ship owners have virtually taken over the city and the harbour in Walvis Bay in Namibia. There are processing factories there and a good motorway running down to Cape Town, where poached Patagonian toothfish have been shipped out in containers previously, often facilitated by bribes and creative customs declarations.
And then there is Angola, the dictatorship with many small harbours and few customs inspectors. It is difficult to predict what awaits them if the chase ends there. The worst part is perhaps the constantly gnawing uneasiness that the Thunder will receive help from another vessel at sea, and when they see a ship appear on the radar with its course set in their direction, the speculations start up again.
“It is not on Marine Traffic,” the communications officer Stefan Ehmann says, who is monitoring the enormous database providing an overview of the locations of more than a half-million vessels.
“Very strange to see traffic this far south and because they’re coming so close to us that gives us cause for alarm,” Hammarstedt says, who can now see the lights from the ship through his binoculars.
Should he call them up on the radio or should he wait to see whether the Thunder adjusts its course or speed to meet the mysterious ship? What if the vessel is something else
