Bathers who on the morning of this Tuesday tried to cool off and escape the high temperatures on the beach of El Portús, in Cartagena (Region of Murcia), encountered an unusual scene: a motorboat reached the shore and, without making any effort to hide beyond partially covering their heads, a group of at least four people loaded it with jerrycans full of gasoline before speeding back out to sea.
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At that time, mid-morning, the beach was full of bathers and they themselves recorded the images with their mobile phones and alerted the Civil Guard about what was happening. The armed institute, for the moment, has not been able to locate these crew members and maintains a search operation by sea and land along the Murcian coast to try to find them.
According to sources consulted by El PAÍS, this type of fuel loading on the coast is increasingly frequent and has two main objectives: supplying boats dedicated to drug trafficking — what in jargon is known as petaqueo — or supplying gasoline to mafias dedicated to taking immigrants to the Spanish coasts aboard small boats and who need this fuel to escape the Spanish security forces once they abandon the migrants on the coast.
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According to the newspaper La Opinión de Murcia, which broke this case, those who loaded the boat with gasoline had brought those jerrycans to the beach in a vehicle stolen in El Algar, another area of the Cartagena coast.
Sources from the Government Delegation in the Region of Murcia have confirmed that the Civil Guard keeps the investigation open for these events, which have been repeated on numerous occasions throughout this year. In recent months, the same sources point out, the Civil Guard and the National Police have dismantled several criminal groups dedicated to fuel trafficking for the supply of boats. In total, more than 40 people have been arrested and more than 12,000 liters of gasoline have been seized.