Police arrested last December to the Galician fishing captain ‘Laitador’, investigated in Argentina for trafficking in persons for labor exploitation of Senegalese sailors in their crew.
According to the prosecutor’s office of Caleta Olivia, in the province of Santa Cruz de Argentina, the case dates back to 2017, when a ship’s sailor, a freezer drag with a base port in Vigo, was evacuated in coma by the naval prefecture to 135 Marine miles of Puerto Deseado.
The 56 -year -old captain was arrested after the issuance of a red notification through Interpol. All this for the alleged commission of a crime of trafficking in persons for the purpose of labor exploitation, aggravated by having taken advantage of the situation of “vulnerability” of the victims, at least one of them of Senegalese nationality, which was rescued from the boat.
“The health situation of the Senegalese sailor-rescued in a coma-and its subsequent statement in the judicial headquarters allowed the Public Prosecutor’s Office to move on the criminal hypothesis of the crime of trafficking in persons for the purpose of labor exploitation, since-among other details-the sailor said that he did exhausting jobs of up to 22 hours a day, the seven days a week, in unhealthy conditions, without suitable clothing and scarce A salary below the minimum established in international standards.
According to the imputation, the captain of the nave would have accepted and housed on February 15, 2017 within the crew in his charge to a Senegalese sailor, between at least three more, “whose situations of vulnerability abused.”
According to the prosecution, the victims were previously contacted through the shipowner, which paid the passage by plane from Senegal to Cabo Blanco, in Mauritania -from where the ship left -, “to exploit them, depositing them a sum of money lower than the minimum wage, complying with working days of about twenty -two hours a day, Monday through Monday, in the area of fillet in the warehouse of the B/P Warehouse [buque pesquero]without rest or appropriate medical assistance, not contributing place of rest or recreation, or relevant clothes, with absence of sauits of adequate hygiene and food, generating it [al marinero identificado] A painting of malnutrition, hypothermia and dehydration, until June 5, 2017, at which time the urgent landing of the victim had to be ordered “to 135 nautical miles from the city of Puerto Deseado.
The brief adds that the victim arrived at the hospital of that city in a coma, “not located in time and space and with an affectation of the motor sensory (hypotymic), despite having entered the fishing vessel in conditions of physical suitability.”
For all this, the arrest of the ship’s captain was ordered on November 13 of last year by the Federal Court of Caleta Olivia, the male being arrested on December 18 in Spain. Two days later, the court required the extradition of the accused.
Already in 2019 the Public Ministry required the call to give a statement of the Captain, an order of called December 26, 2024 and, finally, an arrest warrant.
Penalty for deactivating geolocalizers
At the end of 2023, the Government of Spain reported the sanction to 25 vessels, most of Galician companies, for deactivating geolocators while they were slaughtered near the coast of Argentina, among which was the fisheries ‘logger’, of the veal shipowner of fishing professionals.
In June 2021, the European Commission sent to the Spanish Administration a letter accompanied by a report by the Ocean non -governmental organization in which practices were denounced in Spanish fishing vessels on the shutdown of the automatic identification system for illegal fishing purposes.
Thus, a serious infraction of the ‘logo’ ship was detected for navigating for time intervals between 2020 and 2021 without keeping at all times the AIS location and identification device. The fine imposed was 15,000 euros, with a reduction to 12,000 euros by recognizing the company its responsibility and paying it in April 2023.
Precisely, among these sanctioning files of the General Directorate of the Merchant Marine was also a fine of 150,000 euros to Grupo Nores, shipowner of the Villa de Pitanxo, for deactivating geolocalizers.
