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OPERATION SPARROW

RIBEIRA, MARCH 2015

They react with the speed of lightning. First they lock the door. Then they turn off the light. Subsequently they start up the paper shredder.

Three fisheries officers are standing beneath the colonnade by Vidal Armadore’s offices in Ribeira. They have in their hands a search warrant, but nonetheless announce their arrival by ringing the doorbell. The moment that environmentalists and the authorities of several countries have for years been waiting for is about to culminate in a clumsy anti-climax. Operation Sparrow, named after Johnny Depp’s unpredictable character in Pirates of the Caribbean, was supposed to be a unique operation in a European context. For the first time, the secret owners of “The Bandit 6” were to be flushed out into the light of day.

Now the officers are standing and staring irresolutely at a closed door. Then they call the local police station and request assistance. Fifteen minutes after ringing the bell, they are finally inside the room where the paper shredder is in the process of cutting to ribbons the evidence of 20 years of illegal fishing in Antarctica. The first thing the fisheries officers do is to turn off the shredder. Amongst the strips of paper, they see the remains of documents from 2012. In a tiny storeroom deep inside the premises, they find several boxes of documents that somebody has obviously attempted to hide.

One of the three individuals frantically at work inside the shipping company premises is Serafin Vidal, the man who hired Alberto Zavaleta Salas as captain of the Kunlun and who is responsible for recruiting crew members for the fleet that has been plundering toothfish stocks in the Southern Ocean. Soon Manuel Antonio “Toño” Vidal Pego also come rushing in. “Toño”, the family’s business mind, who has a predilection for luxury apartments, expensive restaurants and fast cars, sits down and writes 50 pages of comments on the documents that are confiscated. But it is too late.

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.