Catching Thunder

by Eskil Engdal

  The man who shows up at the meetings with the private detective and the insurance company’s agent is Florindo González Corral. There he calls himself a representative for the owner of the Thunder.

  In an email the Spanish private detective asks us to keep a low profile in relation to Florindo González. “What you call ‘bad guys’ are individuals who are widely recognized and considered important in Galicia. You must keep in mind that everyone who lives there has a family member who is involved in smuggling. Fishing without a permit is a part of their DNA and something everyone accepts. Just like bullfighting. These people receive money from the local authorities and the EU. Maybe it sounds strange, but that’s how it is,” the private investigator writes.

  “Every country has its own customs and codes that must be respected. If not, we won’t get the results we want. Five minutes after you called Florindo, he contacted us and asked if we were the ones who had given you his phone number. He wasn’t nervous, he was just irritated. Because he wants to stay clear of the sinking incident and illegal fishing. For the time being we have no documents that can prove that Florindo has financial interests in the Thunder or Estelares. But we know that he is the one who controls the company,” the private detective continues.

  A few months after the wreck, Interpol receives a letter which also identifies Florindo González Corral as the owner of the Thunder. They know the sender, but the source of the information is not revealed out of fear of reprisals. The letter specifies that the informant is somebody who is close to Florindo Gonzalez Corral.

  “When we showed the source a photo of González Corral, he identified him as the owner of the Thunder. He was also the owner of the Odin/Comet, which sank off the coast of Mauritius in 2009. González Corral was present on several occasions when the Thunder put in to port in Southeast Asia, he arrived together with ‘Suso’ and José Manuel Salgueiro,” the letter states.

  The glass door to the old office building in Vigo’s harbour has been smashed. The office on the first floor looks like a relic from another time; behind the curtains in the semi-dark premises are only half-empty filing cabinets and an old typewriter. These are the offices of Florindo González and his company Bacamar. In June the Spanish fisheries authorities made their move on this address. Everything was in place for Operation Sparrow 2 and this time it was the owners of the Thunder, Perlon and Viking who were the target of the operation. Florindo González was politely aloof during the raid. It seemed as if he had been waiting for the moment and had been advised by his lawyers to say as little as possible. The confiscated materials convinced the Spanish fisheries authorities that Florindo González was the man who controlled the Thunder’s expeditions.

  “We know that he often travels to Malaysia to organize the logistics and to negotiate prices,” says Assistant Managing Director Héctor Villa González of the inspection department of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and the Environment. “We found documents that connected him to the ship. There is no doubt that it was Florindo González Corral who owned the Thunder.”

  52

  THE MADONNA AND THE OCTOPUS

  O CARBALLIÑO, OCTOBER 2016

  The stone church Santa María de Arcos is located on the outskirts of the town of O Carballiño in the southwest corner of Galicia. Along with a few Renaissance paintings and a simple altarpiece, the church houses the statue of the Madonna of Arcos.

  Every year on 15 August the Madonna is carried out of the church, placed on a beautifully decorated float and transported through the town in a ceremonious procession. The procession is led by the respected businessman and family patriarch Florindo González Otero. Behind him follows his eldest son, Florindo González Corral, then a brass band and the rest of the residents of the town. This is how it is every year.

  This is the most important date on the González family’s calendar. Not even a business trip to the enterprise in Chile, to the hotel complex in the Canary Islands or to a fishing vessel unloading in Asia, is a valid reason for staying away from the church on this day. Any family member who fails to attend, will never be forgiven.

  A few days before the procession, there is an auction to determine who will be allowed to carry the Madonna in and out of the church. Everyone knows that the González family will win the bidding round; nobody dares to outbid them, unless the family itself grants its permission. The González family has paid almost EUR 10,000 for the right to handle the figure of the saint, but for the patriarch Florindo González Otero faith doesn’t have a price. The Madonna will give the family’s ships protection.

  In the 1970s one of their fishing vessels sailed into a storm, the ship started taking in water and the lives of the crew of 30 were in danger. When Florindo González Otero lost contact with the ship, he went to church, said his prayers to the Madonna, promised to be true to her for as long as he lived, carry her in and out of the church, and to support the congregation financially. For that reason there is a picture of the saint in all the family’s offices and ships. On the Thunder the Madonna figure was hanging on the bridge.

  August 15 is also the day of O Carballiño’s octopus festival. Although this unremarkable town is located 80 kilometres from the coast, it adorns itself with the title of “Galicia’s Octopus Capital”. When the Cistercian monks established themselves outside the city in the eleventh century, the coastal villages were obliged to pay tithes to the monastery. The most impoverished paid in octopus which was dried, preserved or processed in O Carballiño. Encouraged by the local octopus industry, in the 1960s the González family bought a boat to fish octopus off the coast of Morocco. They quickly expanded into cod fishing in Canadian waters and off the coast of South Africa. After having lost their quotas in South Africa, the González ships moved further south and west. Soon the family had its own fleet and freezing plant in Chile.

  The family company’s express philosophy was to explore new markets, and at most they owned five vessels and had 500 employees, traded and exported octopus, toothfish, cod and shellfish. Soon the family was among the richest and most respected in sleepy O Carballiño. From their profits they made donations to a football school, theatre productions, music groups and the church.

  More than one year after the wreck of the Thunder, on 15 August 2016, the family was honoured with the city’s award of distinction for its work “as a financial impetus for the region and the close collaboration with the local governmental authorities”. During the award ceremony, the head of the family Florindo González and his eldest son of the same name stood each on either side of the city’s mayor.

  “We are proud and we have earned the award. It is recognition for having struggled for so many years,” the son said in his thank-you speech.

  Nobody in the auditorium noticed that the relationship between father and son was cool and aloof. The constant accusations that the González name was connected with la mafia gallega had plagued the 86-year-old patriarch for many years.

  It is a mild Friday evening in October. In just a few days the foliage will begin to fall on Avenida do Parque – the best address in O Carballiño. The street is a lush bright spot in a city so dominated by dogmatic and effective 1950s architecture that tourists are advised not to visit here. On Avenida do Parque all the villas are the same, light sandstone colour with red tiled roofs and are fenced in by wrought-iron picket fences. In most of the gardens there is room for a swimming pool and a two-car garage. By the window on the ground floor of one of the villas, the enterprising son Florindo González Corral sits leaning forward and talking on the telephone.

  Since we contacted him by email for the first time in March 2015, Florindo González Corral has denied having any knowledge of the Thunder.

  “The company I represent, Frigoríficos Florindo, is a first class food commerce company, both internationally and nationally. All our activities are legal and regulated by the authorities in the countries in which we operate
. I would therefore advise against your publicizing my name in connection with illegal fishing, the vessel and the company you mention. If you do so, you will be held liable for all the damage you inflict on me and my company’s reputation,” he writes in an email.

  In a subsequent email he asks that we not mention his name at all. Then he stops responding.

  Now he comes strolling calmly down the driveway. In the villa neighbourhood it’s so quiet that his steps can be clearly heard. He is wearing the same type of button-down blue shirt that he wears in official contexts. In his right hand the ember of a cigarillo glows.

  “We’ve come to talk about the Thunder …”

  It’s as if he has been waiting for this moment. He is accommodating and offers us small cigars from a box. The cigarillo, the heavy gold chain, the open shirt front and the red-cheeked face give him the look of a middle-aged man about town.

  “I have nothing to do with the Thunder. I have no connection with the ship. I know it was an old Norwegian ship that came to Spain with papers from Panama, and then it sailed to Mauritius. There were some Asians who bought it. They were from Singapore, I believe.”1

  “You were in a meeting with the insurance company as a representative for the Thunder’s controlling company?”

  “I had a conversation with them, but that doesn’t mean that I owned the ship. I have nothing to hide,” he says.

  He has no explanation for why so many sources identify him as the owner of the Thunder, but tells us that he bought fish from the Thunder when the ship was called the Rubin and the Typhoon. He emphasizes that there was never any talk of poaching fish.

  “I was in Mauritius when they were selling fish, but I haven’t bought fish from the ship in the past 12–13 years,” he says.

  He reluctantly tells us about “Capitán Nemo” and José Manuel Salgueiro, the two who have been identified as his closest collaborators in the operation of the Thunder.

  “José Manuel Salgueiro is retired and has been ill for three years. He’s depressed and is not in a financial position to own a ship. We worked together in Mexico, but that was a long time ago. ‘Capitán Nemo’ is an agent I had contact with. There are many people who know me, many seamen. If somebody asks me for help, I help out. But there are many other problems, Chinese who fish illegally with crews who are barely paid and never allowed to leave the ship. In Galicia we have problems with narcotics smuggling, perhaps the authorities and the police should have made that a priority instead,” he says and flicks the cigarillo across the sidewalk.

  “But you know the story of the Thunder?”

  “Yes. That hasn’t been a good story for me. The other day I was at a party in Vigo and everyone asked about the Thunder. It caused problems for me with the family. They saw my name on the Internet, especially my father. We have the same name,” he says.

  The story that Florindo González Corral tells us on this golden afternoon is full of gaps. He also denies that he owned several of the old pirate vessels that witnesses and investigators have connected to him.

  “In the end this will perhaps be a story I can tell my grandchildren,” he sighs.

  “What will you tell your grandchildren?”

  “I don’t know,” he answers curtly.

  “The Indonesians on the Thunder say that you treat them well …”

  “Ha ha ha ha.”

  “We’d hoped you could tell us about all the conversations you had with Captain Cataldo?”

  “I know that he’s a captain and that the boat was chased. Now I don’t think there are any boats from Galicia in the Antarctic any longer. Neither is there any market for illegal fish,” he says.

  The twilight steals into O Carballiño, “don Florindo” looks at his watch, tosses the third burned down cigarillo onto the sidewalk and rests his hand on the wrought-iron picket fence.

  “Let’s hope that this story will soon come to an end,” he says as his good-bye.

  53

  THE FINAL ACT

  When the Thunder’s second engineer Luis Alfonso Morales Mardones came wandering into his home town of Valparaiso in Chile, he believed that the worst was over. The story of the wrecked pirate ship had sparked the interest of both the local media and the engineer’s vindictive ex-wife. Now he would have to pay off an old debt.

  Mardones lived in a modest house on the ridge of a steep ravine in Cerro Cordillera, one of the hills surrounding the seaport on the Pacific shore. When we knocked on the door one spring day in 2016, the neighbours told us they hadn’t seen him in months. The only trace of Mardones was an article in a local paper. “The Story of a Pirate” was a character assassination carried out by his former wife. According to his ex-wife, Mardones had served 18 years in the Navy, but was kicked out when it became known that he’d initiated a relationship with a transsexual. After that dishonourable discharge, he signed up on a fishing vessel, subsequently became a pirate and boasted of the huge sums of money he earned on the Thunder. She was obliged to provide for herself and her children by working as a street clown, she explains.

  Now her ex-husband was going to pay. After the article, Mardones disappeared from Valparaiso.

  In September 2016 the Thunder’s Captain Luis Alfonso Rubio Cataldo came home to his fashionable apartment in the seaside resort of Viña del Mar outside Valparaiso. Cataldo and the two Spanish officers never had to serve their sentences in the São Tomé prison. Although they lost the appeal, they were allowed to leave the island without paying the fine of EUR 15 million. Their local ship agent Wilson Morais tells of how he was left to foot a substantial bill for rent and services he had carried out for the pirates. The shipping company suddenly stopped responding to his emails. The young public prosecutor Kelve Nobre de Carvalho had ambitions of following the money trail left by the Thunder, but the web of tax havens and dodgy flag states involved in the Thunder saga proved too complicated to penetrate. Instead, he sent a letter to authorities in Madrid requesting assistance in collecting the EUR 15 million fine from the ship owner. Asked by the authors who he identified as the ship owner, he named Florindo González.

  The investigation against Florindo Gonzalez Corral is still ongoing.

  “He is in the oven. Cooking slowly,” one of the investigators says.

  Most of the crew of “The Bandit 6” ships were young and underpaid men from Java who were presumably puzzled by the fact that their officers so frequently wore ski masks. In March 2016, we are on the way to the province of Tegal to hear their stories from the Thunder’s last journey. While we are waiting in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, we are ambushed: A fight has broken out over the stories of those who lived in the very bottom of the Thunder. A research assistant at a university in New Zealand, Elyana Thenu, warns the crew of the Thunder against meeting us. And she does so by spreading a dose of lies that frightens the crew into silence.

  “We have found out that one of them is a journalist, but the other has ties with the Norwegian government. You should know that Mr Glenn has discovered this through his friends outside of New Zealand. The Norwegian government is working closely with Interpol, who wants to crack down on illegal fishing,” she writes in a Facebook message to the crew.

  To prevent the meeting, she threatens them.

  “You will all be punished in accordance with international maritime law. I would therefore ask everyone who is in contact with these men from Norway not to speak with them,” she writes on Facebook.

  “Please cancel the appointment,” Thenu virtually orders.

  “Mr Glenn”, the man who was referred to in the email, is Dr Glenn Simmons, a scientist and specialist in human trafficking at the University of Auckland. He was the one who claimed that the Indonesian crew was very likely held on board the Thunder against their will, a story Sea Shepherd spread all over the world to draw attention to the chase. The Interpol agents found no evidence supporting this claim when they inte
rviewed the crew in São Tomé. A few months after the 30 Indonesians returned to Indonesia, Simmons and Thenu interviewed several of them. The interviews are part of a research project and the crew clearly made some admissions.

  “You stated that you knew it was an illegal ship and that nonetheless you chose to work there to earn money. That’s not legal,” Thenu writes in the message where she warns them against us.

  Now everything will get better, she promises.

  “We [Mr Glenn and I] want to help you find a better life.”

  It is a perfect lie for frightening the Indonesian crew into silence. Several of them have now been hired by fishing vessels off the coast of West Africa.

  Back home in Chimbote, Peru the Kunlun’s Captain Alberto Zavaleta Salas received several emails from the Vidal system in which he is urged to delete all correspondence with the shipping company. And he is asked to keep his mouth shut if anyone should call. After our meeting in Lima, Zavaleta Salas decided to collaborate with the Spanish police. Until he finds work on a ship, he subsists on odd jobs as a painter. A number of the other captains of “The Bandit 6” vessels explain that they are struggling to find work in the aftermath of all the media attention surrounding the pirate vessels.

  In September 2016 in Indonesia, Captain Juan Domingo Nelson Venegas González and the chief engineer of the Viking are charged a fine of 2 billion Indonesian rupiahs. They are unable to pay it and must serve a four month jail sentence.

  After the wreck of the Thunder Captain Warredi Enisuoh of the Nigerian coastal administration, NIMASA, went on holiday in Norway. At the turn of the year 2015–2016, he and a number of chief executives were implicated and later charged in a corruption case at NIMASA. Tens of millions of dollars are to have vanished from the coastal administration’s office. Warredi Enisuoh has pleaded not guilty in this case on which at the moment of this writing there has not yet been a final ruling.