Algeciras (Cádiz), (EFE) the Strait of Gibraltar when supposedly returning from taking a shipment of hashish, in an accident that caused the death of six sailors.
In her provisional indictment, to which EFE has had access, the Campo de Gibraltar Anti-Drug Prosecutor, Macarena Arroyo, accuses the shipowner of six crimes of homicide. And of the crimes of belonging to a criminal organization, against health, against workers, money laundering and attempted fraud.
The owner and his partner are the main ones of the six accused by the Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office of being behind the network. For which the Rúa Mar went from the port of Barbate to a maritime area of Morocco. To pick up a shipment of hashish that he was going to transfer later to the coast of Cádiz.
In the letter, the prosecution reports that Pedro Samuel Maza was “responsible” and “owner” of the cache of 1,181 kilos of hashish. That he was intervened in 2019 in one of his fishing boats, which had the name of another person “as a screen”.
The hash business
After this intervention, according to the prosecution, I allegedly continue in the business of hashish trafficking. Already monitored by the National Court, in investigations that led to several telephone interventions.
In January 2020, he planned another hashish transfer operation with other defendants. For this, in the early morning of January 22, the “Rúa Mar” left the port of Barbate, with six sailors on board as declared crew and two others, who were not declared.
The prosecutor recounts how one of these undeclared sailors, one of the deceased, called the owner’s phone to comment that they had a breakdown.
The vessel remained throughout the afternoon of the 22nd in the same sea area. From Moroccan waters in the western part of Tangier.
In the early morning of the 23rd, Salvamento Marítimo tried to call the owner up to five times. To inform him that the boat’s positioning beacon had gone off, which meant the mast had hit water.
Salvamento Marítimo finally managed to speak with the owner at 3:10. To ask him if he had “some way of contacting the boat,” says the prosecutor’s letter.
The defendant replied that he had no way of contacting the vessel. “Omitting, with contempt for the risks he knew the sailors were incurring, that the crew had a satellite phone with which they communicated with him.”
feign concern
After the Maritime Rescue call, “the defendant makes up to six calls … in order to appear concerned and interested in his crew.”
According to the Rua Mar ship’s radio beacon, the ship sank at 1:30 a.m. 28 miles off Cape Spartel (Near Tangier).
According to a report from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, at the time of the sinking the fishing boat was outside the area that is allowed according to its certification.
The prosecutor points out that on the morning of the 23rd, after learning of the shipwreck, as the owner did not have paid the civil liability insurance for the boat, he made a deposit in favor of an insurance company. “In order to cover the payment of the four installments pending compliance. Communicating the date of the loss after the payment was made, to cover the overdraft”.
After the sinking, an extensive device by land, sea and air began to locate the ship and its crew. The bodies of two of them were recovered on the coast, but four others disappeared at sea.
bales floating in the sea
Three days later, two bales of 25 kilos each of hashish also appeared floating in the sea. According to the prosecutor, they were one of those transported by the “Rúa Mar”.
For the rest of the defendants, he requests lesser sentences since the shipowner is the only one accused of the six crimes of homicide for which he requests 15 years for each of them.
The prosecutor also requests that the shipowner pay 12 million as a fine, another 1.9 million to Salvage and Maritime Safety and compensation of between 200,000 and 400,000 to the wives and children of the six deceased.
The owner, who was provisionally released, was arrested again last week for his relationship with a cache of about 2,000 kilos of hashish located in a fishing boat in El Puerto de Santa María. EFE