Chile’s Investigative Police (PDI) have arrested 11 members of a criminal organization that, in March, robbed multiple truckloads of salmon destined for export, according to local press reports.
The thieves, armed with firearms, assaulted a refrigerated warehouse and threatened its workers in the port city of San Antonio in central Chile, escaping in three trucks carrying a total of 76 pallets of salmon fillets worth an estimated CLP 600 million (USD 655,190, EUR 591,800).
Herik Arguedas, the head of the San Antonio Provincial Prefecture of the PDI, reported that around 100 detectives participated in the sting operation dubbed “Operación Santo Salmón” because the hold-up took place right before Easter, or “Semana Santa” in Spanish, when many Catholics prefer to consume seafood over meat. In addition to the salmon police seized 9-millimeter caliber firearms, shotguns, and other weapons, along with drugs and cash.
The perpetrators are being charged for the crimes of robbery with intimidation, reception of stolen goods, and violation of the weapons and drug law. Most of the accused have no criminal record.
The investigation established that the defendants were part of an organized network with specific roles, including transport executives, financiers, and merchants.
“There were significant logistics and planning behind this crime,” Arguedas said on national television.
San Antonio prosecutor Claudia Cancino described this investigation as one of the most important carried out so far this year.
“Clearly, there is an organization here. No one can enter a place that is full of people working without having the necessary logistics, with the trucks and the drivers of those trucks, with [escape] vehicles guiding them, and with collection points that have to be able to handle that large amount of merchandise,” she said. “Stolen goods were found that were associated with at least three more robberies that occurred in different parts of the country, and there are remnants of merchandise that correspond to other robberies with intimidation on a national level.”
The fact that the members of this criminal gang also effectively work in legal activities points to “a greater complexity,” San Antonio Provincial Presidential Delegate Caroline Sireau noted.
Salmon theft costs the country as much as USD 80 million (EUR 72.3 million) each year, and the Chilean government is working to establish harsher punishments for the crime. Legislators are preparing a bill that would stiffen penalties for salmon theft, strengthen controls around the illicit practice, and enable the use of special investigation techniques for prosecution.
