“Tucho” doesn’t see what is hiding in the shadows. By the bar a plainclothes policeman is covertly taking photographs of him. The telephone has been tapped, and many of his routine movements are followed by eyes he cannot see. Hidden video cameras have been installed by the entrance to the shipping office. When on the rare occasion he manoeuvres the expensive Bentley out of the underground garage, an anonymous vehicle follows behind him. When he fills the car up with petrol, there is a stranger nearby.
After “The Bandit 6” was chased and boarded in the Southern Ocean, the Spanish minister of agriculture, food and the environment summoned the director of the environmental crime division of the national police force of the Guardia Civil for a meeting.1 They were having problems with a criminal family in the north, she explained.
When the Guardia Civil investigator Miguel and three of his colleagues are put on the case, they know virtually nothing at all about illegal fishing and the Galician fishing mafia’s operations in the Antarctic. But after having consulted with environmentalists, fisheries experts and Interpol, a clear image begins to emerge of who is involved in the looting of the Antarctic. After a few months, the Guardia Civil agents travel to Galicia to take a closer look at the suspects: The Vidal family, Florindo González and Manuel Martínez Martínez. They check the offices and residences of everyone involved and then make a decision.
The first target of Operation Yuyus is the Vidal family in Ribeira.2 They have the most ships and hands down the worst reputation of all. The havoc wreaked by the Vidal family was so blatant and the international pressure on Spain to investigate them so great that it was an embarrassment for the Spanish authorities.
For the undercover police from Madrid, the Vidal family seems more like ordinary white collar criminals than a mafia organization. But who knows, one of the undercover agents thinks, perhaps it will blow up tomorrow?
From endless hours spent on stakeouts they have established that the brothers Manuel Antonio “Toño” and Angel “Naño” Vidal Pego seldom go out for lunch, but instead have homemade sandwiches at the office and that both have an affection for the car make Porsche. “Toño” has a large Cayenne, while “Naño” is most satisfied in the sports model 911. But that is hardly a crime.
For months they have tapped the telephones of several of the shipping company’s employees, but the results have been disappointing. None of the conversations have been about the pirate vessels.
However, the investigators have found informants with detailed knowledge of the Vidal family’s business and register of sins in the Antarctic, and who know where conclusive evidence against the family is to be found. But Miguel wants to hold off on securing this. First, they will launch a full-scale raid on the offices and residences in Galicia.
The investigation remains under wraps until the Guardia Civil starts checking the bank accounts of the Vidal family’s companies in several Spanish banks. A bank employee warns the Vidal family’s financial director that the police are sniffing at their finances. When Guardia Civil picks up on the warning from a phone tap, they decide to move in immediately.
Early in the morning of 7 March 2016, 50 Spanish police officers and two Interpol agents get into their cars. They have with them two tracker dogs that can sniff out hidden cash. It is the largest offensive against the Galician fishing mafia ever. And it has been planned down to the most minor detail.
One team sets out for an office in the city of A Coruña, while two other teams drive towards Ribeira. When they have reached the Barbanza peninsula, some of the cars turn off the motorway, heading for the Vidal family’s fish oil factory near the city of Boiro. The rest of the cars continue driving another 20 kilometres along the gentle curves of the motorway leading to Ribeira. At exactly nine o’clock all the teams make their move.
By the time Miguel is inside the office in Ribeira with a search warrant in his hand, he is sure that he is expected. During the first few minutes the atmosphere is nervous; one of the staff is punching a number energetically into the telephone. The two computer specialists from Interpol receive the passwords for the computers and start mirroring the contents.
In drawers and cupboards Miguel and his colleagues find several dozen mobile phones and SIM cards. When he looks down into a box containing 30 SIM cards from Spain, Portugal and Thailand, Miguel understands why the telephone tap has not produced results. The shipping company’s people have been constantly switching telephones and communicating by Skype and Telegram, programs on which it is possible to delete messages a short time after they have been sent.3
Although the Guardia Civil will never find these messages, Miguel is satisfied with the find. The Guardia Civil wants to attempt to prove that the ship owner family Vidal and some dozen co-workers are an organized crime syndicate and it is only people with something to hide who replace the SIM card every time they communicate with one another, he thinks.
The Guardia Civil also makes another interesting find – a dozen passports belonging to little brother Angel “Naño” Vidal Pego. The passports are filled with stamps from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and
