After they have ransacked the offices in Ribeira, A Coruña and the fish oil factory in Boiro, the investigators travel to the homes of the two most important individuals in the shipping company – the father “Tucho” and the eldest son, “Toño”.
When they ransack the father’s villa in Ribeira, they let the dogs loose. In the large cellar facility under the villa they sniff at “Tucho’s” Bentley, the grey Land Rover he uses on a daily basis and his wife’s Mini Cooper, but they find nothing of significance.
After the action against the Vidal family the Guardia Civil procures another search warrant. And this time Miguel knows they will find concrete evidence.
When the Kunlun, Yongding and Songhua were on a mission in the Southern Ocean, every week they sent detailed reports to Vidal’s insurance broker in Vigo, the company ARTAI Corredores de Seguros. The reports confiscated by the Guardia Civil state how many kilos of toothfish the ships had fished in the course of seven days and how much the fish was worth. Every week the value of the cargo the rusty wrecks had in their cold storage rooms increased. It did not take long before the catch – the white gold – was worth far more than the ships. And these were valuable commodities the Vidal family wanted to insure.
They had flagged the ships in rogue states and hidden the holding companies in tax havens but the detailed insurance reports documenting the illegal fishing were sent to an office in Galicia.
Greed was the shipping company’s Achilles’ heel.
When Miguel adds up the totals from the many reports, he figures out that the Kunlun, Yongding and Songhua in the years from 2010 to 2015 have fished 5,800 tons of toothfish, for a documented value of EUR 81 million. Based on information from the Guardia Civil’s informants, it cost the shipping company around EUR 2 million a year to send the three ships to the Antarctic. The shipping company also had costs for port calls, warehousing and transport of the fish in Asia, but the profits were nonetheless astronomical.
Miguel cannot help thinking of everyone who has contributed to keeping the enterprise going for so long. Flag states, ship agents, port authorities, banks and insurance companies. Everyone must have known what they were taking part in, he thinks. The Kunlun, Yongding and Songhua had been blacklisted for years, but nonetheless, large European companies such as British Marine and German Allianz had sold insurance to Vidal’s pirate fleet.5 When the Guardia Civil turned up at the office of the insurance broker in Vigo, it was hardly necessary to mention the possibility of accomplice liability. ARTAI immediately cooperated with the police.6
Miguel is very satisfied with the evidence the Guardia Civil can present to the special national court of justice in Madrid. They have the insurance reports showing the amount of fish, the documents the Spanish fisheries authorities confiscated the previous year, an enormous amount of materials confiscated by the Australian authorities when they boarded the Kunlun and videos from New Zealand showing the Kunlun fishing in international waters. They know that the ship’s documents the captains have presented to the authorities in several countries are forgeries and they have crew lists with the names of Spanish citizens who have been on board the ships. After they received access to bank accounts in Spain, they also learned a lot about the Vidal family’s business model, not to mention, what has happened to all the money.
The shipping company has used the following method to launder the money back into Spain. When the fish was removed from the ocean, it was owned by the same company that owned the ship – companies registered in the tax havens of Panama and Belize. Then Vidal sold the fish to a company they personally controlled in Switzerland. The Swiss company then resold the fish to the buyers. Based on the confiscated materials, the Guardia Civil has identified ten companies in Hong Kong and Taiwan that bought toothfish from the Vidal family’s Swiss company. After the settlement was deposited into an account in Hong Kong, the money was forwarded to the Vidal family’s Spanish companies. There millions have been spent on financing investments in real estate, renewable energy and the fish oil factory in Boiro – the same factory with a large sign on the entrance gate proclaiming that the EU and the Spanish authorities have contributed EUR 6.6 million in subsidies. The white gold was used to build a business empire for the future.
By studying bank accounts and private consumption, the Guardia Civil investigators discover that large sums have also gone to the financing of private luxuries − big houses, expensive flats and extravagant cars. The rental of “Naño’s” Porsche 911 alone costs EUR 5,000 a month – far more than the salary of an experienced investigator for the Guardia Civil.
On the afternoon of 7 March, the neighbours in Ribeira watch in shock as members of the powerful Vidal clan are arrested and shipped off to remand prison in the capital of the province A Coruña and in Madrid. The patriarch “Tucho”, his two sons, daughter, son-in-law and the shipping company’s financial director are charged with environmental crime, money laundering, document forgery and being part of a crime syndicate. A few days later the six of them are released after having paid bail amounting to a total of EUR 600,000.
“Tucho” returns to the card table at his favourite bar the Doble SS.
49
THE TIANTAI MYSTERY
THE SOUTHERN OCEAN/MALAYSIA/SPAIN, 2012–2016
For Peter Hammarstedt the Tiantai was the symbol of the brutality of the pirate ship owners who were looting the Antarctic. A floating coffin at the bottom of the world with a hull ill-equipped to withstand the powerful forces of the Southern Ocean. When he was travelling around fundraising for the search for “The Bandit 6”, he always concluded with the story of the refrigerated cargo ship that disappeared and
