By Delvardo Emmanuel

The boat captain behind the failed smuggling attempt of 21 foreign nationals pleaded guilty to assisting the illegal migrants, who were all passengers on a 32ft yacht with attempting to leave The Bahamas.

Seventy-three year old Dominican national, Confessor Torres Cabrera will spend the next year at the Bahamas Department of Corrections for his part in transporting the migrants out of the country.

Police officers, attached to the Marine Support Unit on Saturday, June 3rd, stopped the vessel that Cabrera was piloting with 21 other persons onboard.

The group appeared before Assistant Chief Magistrate Subusola Swain on Tuesday; Cabrera was  charged with one count of assisting the illegal passengers to depart The Bahamas by a vessel without leave of an immigration officer….

While apologetic Cabrera pleaded with the magistrate, through an interpreter, to have mercy as he asserted that he had no knowledge of those persons onboard and said he was contracted and sent from the Dominican Republic only to collect and transport a cargo ship not a pleasure boat.

Cabrera, during his testimony pleaded with the magistrate not send him prison as he said it would kill him, He further told the court that he suffers from diabetes and cholesterol showing medication to prove his claim.

Magistrate Swain fined Cabrera $21,000 in total; $1,000 per passenger. Failure to pay the fine resulted in a prison sentence.

Cabrera told the magistrate that he had no money; to that Magistrate Swain said, “then he goes to prison”.

She also recommended that he be handed over to the Department of Immigration once his sentence is complete.

As for the passengers onboard that vessel they were charged for overstaying and fined a significant amount due to the time overstayed in the country.

Among them were four Haitian nationals, four Brazilian men, one Italian female, one Ecuadorian male, and one Dominican male.

They were recommended for deportation by the magistrate.