Narco-speedboat fraud in Andalusia: the state paid to destroy them and they ended up being resold
A public contract worth 185,000 euros financed a scheme that issued false destruction certificates whilst reselling the confiscated speedboats. Four arrested.
False certificates and seized speedboats returned to the black market
A public contract worth almost 185,000 euros intended to destroy vessels confiscated for smuggling ended up financing their resale on the black market. This is revealed by diariodealmeria.es, which details how the scheme operated between the provinces of Jaén and Granada before the speedboats reached a property in the municipality of Níjar, in Almería.
The agreement, formalised by the Special Delegation of the Tax Agency in Andalusia, Ceuta and Melilla, awarded a company based in Mengíbar—a town in Jaén province—the service of removal, transport, storage, custody and destruction of vehicles and vessels classified as prohibited goods. The exact amount came to 184,966 euros for an execution period of 12 months.
Destruction certificates that did not match reality
The absence of direct supervision during the scrapping process would have allowed those under investigation to avoid the physical elimination of the vessels. The hulls and engines did not disappear: those responsible for custody diverted the material to a treatment centre in Granada province, from where false documents were issued certifying the destruction of the speedboats.
With this bureaucratic backing, the goods returned to circulation and were resold to third parties. To hinder any tracing, the scheme removed the identification numbers from the hulls and engines and registered the vessels under a Polish flag.
An internet advertisement exposed the operation
The thread that investigators began to pull appeared in April, when the Customs Surveillance Service detected an advertisement on an internet sales platform. A semi-rigid vessel was being offered whose characteristics matched a speedboat seized in Almería that, in theory, had already been destroyed.
From that discovery onwards, a complex investigation was launched that led to a property in Níjar, where security forces seized a total of 17 speedboats and 14 high-displacement outboard motors.
Four arrested, investigation ongoing
The operation was carried out jointly by Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency and the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police in Almería. It has concluded, for the time being, with four people arrested and under investigation for alleged offences of smuggling, forgery of documents, handling of stolen goods and misappropriation.
Among those implicated are two managers linked to the depositaries company in Jaén, the manager of the scrapping yard in Granada, and the buyer who was storing the vessels in Almería. All of them have been brought before the judge of Court Number 1 in the Almería capital.
The investigation remains open to determine how many more vessels may have been diverted under this same system.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)