JangadaCat.com

Have you seen this man?

On March 2003 I left San Diego on my 42’ Fountain Pajot catamaran s/v JANGADA bound for La Paz, Baja, Mexico. I arrived there in late March, re-provisioned, and spent a week sailing nearby. On April 10 I checked into Marina de La Paz and was assigned to a slip where I tied up with my bow forward; my new 10’ Zodiac with 15hp Merc outboard was hanging from the stern davits.

The slip I was assigned to had been occupied by “Bright Wing”, another catamaran. John, the owner, had a Zodiac similar to mine that wouldn’t hold air and he had just bought a new one to replace it. He put the word out that the old one was for sale and a Spanish sailor named Ignacio Miro came around to look at it. Ignacio told him that the Zodiac was junk and offered to buy it for $300 (it had cost $2,500 a few months before). Since John was anxious to get out sailing, and he had already purchased a new one, he agreed.

On April 12 I locked up my boat and told the office at Marina de La Paz that I would be gone for three weeks and would return in early May. I secured my dinghy to the davits with a 3/16” steel cable and heavy-duty brass lock, as well as other securing lines and straps.

I returned to my boat in La Paz on May 2 to find my dinghy missing. The cable had been cleanly cut and the lowering lines and pulleys were still on the davits; the securing straps and other lines were gone.

Next morning (May 3) I announced on the VHF that my dinghy and motor had been stolen, and for anyone with information to please contact me. In talking with various people over the next few days I narrowed the probable theft between April 14-20. I made a full report to the police (a two day ordeal), printed up notices and posted them in several stores, public areas and other marinas in La Paz, and I visited the local Port Captain and Customs Office to provide them with all the information.

The police sent two investigators to investigate further, take fingerprints and question the security personnel on the afternoon of May 3. Unfortunately nothing came of my efforts; I gave up looking, pulled JANGADA from the water for the summer, and returned home.

I purchased a new dinghy and motor in Oregon and arranged to have a friend bring them down to La Paz. I returned to La Paz in December, assembled the new dinghy/motor package, and went out sailing for two months. In late January I left the boat in the water at Marina Palmira and returned home.

In late March, 2004, a year after the theft, I received an email from Sharon Cervantes of Coast Marine saying that a woman had been inquiring around for the person who had had the dinghy stolen the year before; she claimed to have information. A few days later I got a call from this woman who said she knew where my stolen dinghy was. After a bit of conversation it became clear that she was the ex-girlfriend of the thief, that he had dumped her and was planning to leave, and she wanted revenge. I didn’t get much more information.

I called Marina La Paz and talked to the owners; they confirmed that some woman had been asking around for me.

The next day I received another call from the woman; this time she was more willing to talk, apparently because her ex was planning to leave in a couple days and she wanted to make sure he got caught before he made his escape. She said his name was Ignacio, she was with him when the dinghy was stolen and she assured me that it was mine. The story she gave me was that he had an old dinghy and had lost it for some reason while anchored one night. So he had returned to Marina La Paz where he knew I had a nice new dinghy and motor (the exact same make and model as the ones he had lost) and stolen mine. Here’s where things get interesting.

In investigating the theft I had found it very strange that a local Mexican thief could have snuck into the marina at night – they have good lighting and night guards – and done all that was necessary to steal the dinghy without making noise or raising suspicion. So it had to be someone who looked like they belonged there and knew what they were doing. Much to my surprise several other people told me that the chances were good that it had been stolen by another cruiser who needed a new dinghy but had no money! Another fellow cruiser… stealing my dinghy??? I was shocked.

I had met Ignacio Miro, a tanned, fit Spaniard sailing on a blue-hulled 52’ Jeanneau Sun Odyssey named “Don Juan” when he was buying the Zodiac from John. We met on the dock, I invited him on board Jangada for a beer and a chat. He seemed like a nice guy, said he was sailing around the world, told me he was doing some work on his motor and would be leaving to continue his journey in a couple weeks. We talked boats and travel and since he was buying a Zodiac identical to mine, we talked about the pros and cons of various designs, makes and models. I told him I had just paid $2,500 for mine, the exact same as he was buying from John for $300. Yes, he said, he was getting a great deal because John was in a hurry and he (Ignacio) saw a chance to easily take advantage of the situation. Personally I thought this was bad karma. I ran into him a couple more times before I returned home a week later, and told him I would undoubtedly run into him again – the small world thing.

Well, that turned out to be true because he turned out to be the thief. In fact, he is accused of several other thefts including that of his boat, “Don Juan”! According to his ex, the Mexican police had confiscated it from him for two months that summer, but returned it when there wasn’t enough evidence.

[For the complete—and truly amazing—story go to:

http://www.aboardlulu.com/lulu20020716.htm
http://www.aboardlulu.com/lulu20030430.htm
http://www.aboardlulu.com/lulu20030517.htm

When she told me this, and that she knew he was planning to leave the following day (supposedly to head north to San Diego but she said that if he was telling people that then the likelihood was that he was heading south instead), I knew I had to act fast. I faxed my documents (receipts,titles and warrantees for the dinghy and motor) to Marina La Paz and to a friend of mine, Matt Bronson, who lives north of Cabo San Lucas, where Don Juan was at a dock in Marina de Baja. Get down there, I told Matt, and get that dinghy back! Since he had originally sailed Jangada with me down from San Diego the year before he was only too happy to help. Alamo my butt… Remember the Dinghy!!!

So Matt arrives in Cabo and finds “Don Juan” and Ignacio, but no dinghy.
“Hello, are you Ignacio?”

“Yes, I’m Ignacio.”

“Well I’m here to ask you about your dinghy.”

Igancio was primed and ready; he didn’t lose a beat. “Oh, that’s all the fault of my psycho girlfriend! She lost my dinghy. She also stole my watch and $5,000. Then she shows up with this other dinghy to replace the one she lost, and when I realized it was stolen I immediately reported it to the police and returned it to them.”

Matt let him talk and the more he talked the more it became obvious that his stories were conflicting. “Here is the receipt for the dinghy,” he volunteered even though Matt never asked for it. He produced a crumpled piece of paper written in child-like block letters and signed in a very European script by “Scott James”, dated 12/15/03, purporting to sell the dinghy and motor to his girlfriend, Marine Matared.

Igancio never seemed interested in where or when the dinghy was stolen, only in proving his innocence. One would certainly think that he would have at least asked (unless of course he already knew…).

They talked for a few more minutes, Ignacio telling Matt how his crazy girlfriend had gotten him in to all sorts of trouble. “I’m going to track down the dinghy at the police station,” Matt told him as he was leaving.

Ignacio decided to throw in a last minute effort to support his claim of total innocence. “I can prove I wasn’t in La Paz when the dinghy was stolen. I can show you some receipts that can prove I wasn’t there on the day the dinghy was stolen.”

Matt stepped onto the dock and walked away. “I’m sure you can, my friend. But what is interesting is the fact that I never told you where or when the dinghy was stolen. That is interesting indeed…” he thought to himself. And he left.

Matt called me to say that he found Iganacio and that apparently the police in Cabo San Lucas had my dinghy. This is incredible! I immediately called Marina La Paz and ask them to contact the police in Cabo and find out the status of the dinghy. Mary Schroyer emails me back to say that the police in Cabo are sending my dinghy up to La Paz pending my arrival, and to be sure I have sufficient papers and receipts to prove it is really mine. She also tells me that Igancio is believed to be responsible for several other missing items, unpaid bills and suspicious dealings in Baja and other places over the past year.

I arrived in La Paz a week later and went directly to Marina La Paz where I met with Neil Shroyer. Yes, he tells me, the police in La Paz indeed have my dinghy and they are very excited about the reward I had offered on my original flyer I had posted around town the year before. But of course it is just before Easter weekend and no one is at the police station so I have to wait until after the holiday to go identify and claim my property.

And yes, he says, he too has read and heard all about Ignacio and his trail of broken hearts and missing items—including the very boat he is on, which has been the subject of several investigations in the past year as to how Ignacio actually came to own it. He says that Ignacio still owes Marina de La Paz money for unpaid slip rental.

On April 16 I went with Matt and Neil to the La Paz police to get my dinghy and motor back. After much paperwork we went to a small warehouse where the dinghy and motor were stored. What I found was nothing like what I had left; the dingy bottom (fiberglass) was cracked, broken and in bad need of repair. The inflatable tubes were torn and stained; the small metal panel in the rear that contained the serial number and identification had been pried off and was gone. All identification of any type had been taken off the motor also; no name, no markings, and again the serial numbers had been removed. The motor was rusty, corroded, dented, encrusted with barnacles and leaking at the bottom seals. Basically, the boat and motor were trashed. I don’t know if the motor ran.

When I got the motor back to Marina Palmira I took it apart to look for identification and I found a small bar code sticker far inside that the thief (Ignacio) had somehow missed; it exactly matched my warranty card – this was indeed my motor and boat.

Later that afternoon I was talking with Sharon Cervantes who indicated that she thought that Ignacio was actually in La Paz! His boat was out of the water for repairs at Abaroa Boat Yard (he had run aground) and he had contacted Jeff Walker (Dawn Rigging) to do some work on the rigging. Jeff had mentioned this to Sharon who knew all about Ignacio.

I decided to pay Ignacio and “Don Juan” a visit at the boat yard where he was frantically trying to make repairs before anyone found out he was in La Paz. I confronted him and he immediately began giving conflicting tales about how he had come to possess my dinghy. At one point he told me that he had no reason to steal my dinghy because he had another one. Where was that one, I asked? Then he changed his story and said it was missing. Then he said it was in Cabo San Lucas. Then he said he didn’t need a dinghy anyway because he was at a marina in Cabo.

He again volunteered to prove to me that he wasn’t even in La Paz when the dinghy was stolen. “How do you know when it was stolen?” I asked. He said that Matt had told him, and also that Matt had showed him copies of emails from his ex-girlfriend. Of course neither Matt nor I ever had copies, and Matt certainly never told him any details of the theft. When I asked him to prove he wasn’t in La Paz when it was stolen as he had volunteered he said his boat was a mess and he couldn’t find any papers.

Ignacio was very evasive and VERY nervous. He begged me not to go to the police and said that he had had some “other trouble” with them in the past. When I asked him what kind of trouble he said it was all his girlfriend’s fault, that she was always getting him into trouble. He also said that he was doing a ‘charter’ business out of Cabo and that he didn’t want any trouble with the police.

I asked him to produce a receipt for the dinghy and he came up with a scrawled paper signed by “Mr. Scott James”, French passport # 8162212, purporting to sell the dinghy and motor to Marine Mitared on 15/12/04. This was the same “receipt” he had showed Matt in Cabo San Lucas the week before. I asked him if I could keep it and he was so flustered he agreed. Then I asked him for a photo of his ex-girlfriend so that if indeed she was the thief, the police could identify her. He gave me one of him and her with a Mexican naval authority (apparently when they were accusing him of stealing “Don Juan” – how appropriate). He said he didn’t have any papers showing his ownership of “Don Juan” since his girlfriend had stolen those too.

“Now Ignacio,” I confronted him. “You’re a pretty smart fellow. You’re telling me your girlfriend shows up with this nice new dinghy with all the serial numbers and markings of any kind removed and you never thought to ask her where she got it? Or that it just might be stolen? You’re not that dumb, Ignacio; you’re just a dumb thief who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. But now we caught you and you’re going to Mexican prison. See if they think you’re so clever.”

I had him sign the back of his “receipt”, acknowledging that he had given it to me voluntarily. I also wanted to compare the handwriting. I noticed a cell phone and he told me his number was (52) 624-113-2341.

It was clear that he was lying. I told him that the police had already been notified and would be coming to talk with him very soon, then I left. I was certain that he would try to launch his boat immediately and make an escape. I again talked with Neil who indicated he would go immediately to Abaroa to try to keep them from launching “Don Juan”.

Around 2pm I was visited by a police investigator who indicated that the local prosecuting attorney in La Paz felt there was sufficient evidence to formally question Ignacio about the crime and that he must report to the police station on Monday, April 19.

At 3pm I was again talking with Sharon Cervantes. When I described “Don Juan” as a blue Jeanneau she said that a similar boat was at that very moment at the fuel dock at Marina Palmira! We immediately called the office and they indicated that indeed it was Ignacio on “Don Juan”, that he had seemed in a big hurry, had quickly fueled up, paid cash, and left just minutes before. He had escaped!!!

In putting together all the different stories from everyone involved this is what I think happened: Ignacio needed a dinghy so he bought the almost new Zodiac from “Bright Wing”, then bought an outboard from Hank Neihaus at Sea Mar. He then took off to sail south with his girlfriend, Marine. They stopped and anchored in Los Frailes for a couple nights along the way.

Somehow Ignacio and/or Marine lost the dinghy. Either they didn’t tie it well enough or it got stolen while tied to the back of their boat one night at or near Frailes. Apparently Ignacio and Marine had a big fight about whose fault it was. So now they had no dinghy. Ignacio remembered that I had almost the identical dinghy and he knew that I was gone for two weeks. Since he was known around Marina de La Paz, it would be easy for him to go there and steal my dinghy without arousing any suspicion.

I think he got a ride from Frailes to Cabo, picked up a car (he told me he had a Jeep there), drove to La Paz, stole my dinghy, brought it back to his boat, then returned to Cabo. Since my dinghy looked the same as his missing one, it would arouse no suspicion if someone like Hank or another acquaintance saw a nice new white Zodiac and Merc behind “Don Juan”.

I think he didn’t bother to remove the serial numbers from my motor and dinghy until later (where they were removed didn’t seem to have as much corrosion as other areas) when it wouldn’t create any suspicion. He probably had a ready reason if someone were to ask, such as trying to make the dinghy and motor look badly “used” so as to appear less desirable to thieves.

I’m not sure what part his girlfriend Marine had in this but it is most likely that she helped him steal it or at least knew all about it; lowering the 260# boat and motor from the davits was no easy task. When he decided to break off his relationship with her sometime in March she decided to spill the beans, hoping that he would get arrested so that he couldn’t leave. THAT would show him!

So as of June 1, this is how the story stands:

I have notified the police in La Paz and Cabo San Lucas, local immigration officials, and the Port Captains in La Paz, Cabo San Lucas and all other nearby locations.

Between reporting and investigating the crime, replacing the dinghy and ultimately recovering it, I have probably spent at least 200 hours, $2,000, and used up LOTS of friend favors. If Ignacio gets away it will make a mockery of all the efforts of many people.

Ignacio also burned several other people during his last (short) stay in La Paz; he stiffed Milt, the owner of the Casa Buena B&B he was staying in for 5 nights when he escaped; he stiffed Hank at Sea Mar who did a special order (non-returnable) of some very expensive rigging parts for him.

On a positive note, my insurance company – Blue Water – was 100% cooperative and efficient in compensating me for the loss (minus the normal deductible).

So if you run into Ignacio or Don Juan, beware! Better yet, call the police. He very well may have changed the name of his boat (or his name) by now but the cruising world is small and I know he will surface again. Visit www.aboardlulu.com for more tales of the high seas with Ignacio (July 16, 2003 – Scam, Bam….).

If you have other Ignacio tales (he’s left quite a trail during the past 2 years) or want a photo of him for identification, just email me.

FLASH NEWS: A private investigator hired by the REAL owner of Ignacio’s boat has just located him in Raiatea (French Polynesia) where he is being held by the French authorities for questioning. They have taken his passport and are holding his boat pending their investigation. His journeys could be at an end… or maybe not….

MORAL OF THE STORY: If you’re going to steal a dinghy, don’t dump your girlfriend. Or visa versa. THE OTHER MORAL: Don’t steal the dinghy of a journalist who will write about you.

Eric Sanford
eric@shockles.com