For twelve years, María Gómez lived with an unbearable silence. Her husband, Julián, an experienced sailor, and their 12-year-old daughter, Laura, set out for a weekend sailing trip on a clear May day in 2012 and never returned. Their boat, El Albatros, was found adrift and empty, with a torn sail and a missing page from its logbook. The official investigation concluded with no answers, leaving María suspended between hope and grief.
The breakthrough came from an unexpected source: a retired Coast Guard captain, Ricardo del Valle, burdened by a guilty conscience. He provided María with previously suppressed evidence, including unedited satellite images that told a horrifying new story. The images showed a speedboat intercepting El Albatros, with figures visible in a struggle on the deck. The speedboat then sped away, leaving the family’s sailboat to drift.
Further documents revealed that the suspicious vessel belonged to Navíos Aranda S.A., a fishing company with known ties to illegal activities. Captain del Valle also disclosed that Julián had been secretly involved in exposing environmental violations in the region and had received threats. The final, chilling clue was a phone record placing Julián’s last signal miles from where his boat was found, suggesting he and his daughter were taken from their vessel.
María’s world, once defined by loss, is now consumed by a quest for justice. The accidental disappearance she had mourned for over a decade was, in fact, a targeted act. Armed with this new evidence, she has begun her own investigation, determined to finally uncover the full truth behind the day her family vanished.
