The “suicide trip” across the Atlantic that ended with a sunken narco-submarine

Twenty-seven days of an “infamous” journey lasted the “suicide trip” undertaken by a former Spanish boxer, accompanied by two Ecuadorians, aboard a narco-submarine that ended up sunk off the Galician coast, in northwestern Spain.

The Spanish journalist Javier Romero recounts this peculiar voyage in the book “Operación Marea Negra” (Ediciones B), the chronicle of how the first vessel of these characteristics detected in Europe went from being a drug trafficking operation to a “question of survival”.

What attracted him was not that it was the most unique drug consignment ever seized in Europe, says Romero, but rather the story of Agustín Álvarez, the pilot of the peculiar ship, who crossed the Atlantic with more than 3,000 kilos of cocaine.

an exciting story

“It was an exciting story that I wanted to tell,” he says. The pilot of the narco-submarine, he explains, “was not the typical guy who comes from a broken family or from a marginal environment that would have led him to juvenile delinquency,” since he had no criminal record.

They offer him this job “by default”, because initially “another Galician boy was going to go” who even reached the Amazonas shipyard from where the boat departed, but “he backed down because he didn’t like what he saw”.

The Spaniard, who was already working for an organization with “strong ties” to Colombia, had just five days to prepare.

He was accompanied by two Ecuadorians who did it for money. “They promised US$55,000 each,” Romero points out, before recounting the “infamous” conditions in which they had to cross the Atlantic “and fighting against the storms.”

“Think of three burly guys in a space of just a couple of square meters for three weeks,” he stresses, although the first eight days were a “peaceful” journey and they even “went out on deck to stretch their legs and clean up.”

But from there, the storms complicated everything. And the constant breakdowns and the stench inside. From the gasoline, from the cocaine and from their own stools, which they had to do in a bag. “It was a suicidal trip, a matter of survival,” he adds.

Everything went wrong

The trip “went off the rails from the beginning”, but the final stretch was a disaster. “Everything went wrong, I think even worse than anyone expected,” he says.

The landing of the drug had to have been made 269 miles from Lisbon. Professionals would be ordered. “It was a Galician organization that had to collect the merchandise and the crew members and sink the narco-submarine, which are always disposable,” says Romero.

“They had two gliders ready but one of them had an engine failure,” he explains, which delayed the entire operation “and the bad weather complicated everything,” so much so that in the middle of a storm “they were almost crushed to death” by a large ship.

That’s when they activated the satellite phone to call for help and that gave them away. The signal was picked up by British authorities. When they were discovered, those responsible for the operation “told them to shoot towards Galicia.”

The idea was to find someone in Galicia to pick up the drug, “but nobody accepted despite the fact that succulent offers were made”. Already with the Spanish police forces on their trail, “they asked them for the most difficult thing yet”, summarizes the author.

They had to arrive, in full storm, to the coast to meet a fishing boat. But that plan also failed. “They asked them again to try further north, but they were told no. They were no longer physically or mentally capable,” he says.

It was then that Agustín activated his plan B. “He had organized it in Portugal and the drug owners allowed it,” the journalist stresses. It was when he turned to childhood friends.

Upon arrival in Galicia, they sank the narco-sub and tried to escape. But the authorities were already waiting for them and little by little they fell.