New details have emerged about the incident involving three men who dove on Saturday in the Gulf of Gdańsk – near critical infrastructure facilities such as the oil terminal, which is the key to the security of oil supply after the embargo on Russian oil. The Trojmiasto.pl website found out how the men, who said they were from Spain, bought the boat and the equipment. Journalists claim that they declared something different to the seller than during a rescue operation, after which they were recovered and questioned by authorities.
Just before 2 a.m. on Sunday, emergency services received a report of a sinking vessel near the mouth of Wisła Śmiała. After more than an hour of searching, the boat was found about 5 kilometers north of Górki Zachodnie.
Three divers who claimed to be from Spain were on board and had been diving in the area for at least six hours. They claimed they were looking for amber, despite the very difficult weather conditions. Only one of them had a passport with him. The phone numbers they provided were inactive.
- Find more news from Poland on our Homepage .
They were discovered near a key component of Polish oil imports, the oil terminal (Naftoport), the importance of which became clear following the European embargo on Russian oil imports. This facility lets Poland get oil from places other than Russia, like Norway and Saudi Arabia. This makes Poland almost completely independent of Russia when it comes to oil.
Naftoport has the capacity to process 40 million metric tons of crude oil per year. This is much more than the domestic needs, which amount to approximately 27 million t. Before the war in Ukraine, its capabilities were used in about 50 percent, now it will be a much higher percentage. Poland will probably supply oil to the Baltic States, the Czech Republic, or Germany.
Suspicious behavior
There are growing concerns about this. Rescuers found the mysterious Spanish divers in the Gulf of Gdańsk in the early hours of Sunday. According to unofficial information that Wirtualna Polska got from people close to the authorities, the situation may have something to do with an international smuggling group.
Bought a boat so “he can fish”
The Trojmiasto.pl portal, in turn, obtained information on the equipment used by men. As it turns out, one of the Spaniards bought the boat that was being used just hours before it left for the bay. The transaction took place in Iława, about 140 kilometers away from the diving site.
The Spanish man, with his interpreter, is thought to meet with a private seller and declared that he needed a boat to catch fish. – He said he had a large boat with two large engines, but it was difficult for him to obtain permission to fish from it in Poland – the former owner of the motorboat told the Trójmiasto.pl portal.
“They wanted to look for amber”
A different account was heard by the employees of the Diving Technology Center in Gdynia, where the men rented equipment the day before. They said there that they wanted to look for amber, which they later told the authorities as well. They were supposed to behave like “ordinary, recreational divers.”
The equipment was rented using a Spanish ID card as identification.
According to former officers of the security services, the situation involving Spanish divers should not have happened at all. – Firstly, their boat appeared in the waters of the Gulf of Gdańsk without the required permits and permissions. The services should monitor and capture this. But more importantly, in the context of the war in Ukraine, they found themselves close to critical infrastructure, said the former head of the Intelligence Agency, Colonel Grzegorz Małecki, in an interview with Wirtualna Polska.
