Hydrophone and camera exposed alleged saboteur at salmon farm 

Underwater hydrophone and thermal camera recordings of a diver heading towards the shore in the early morning, along with the arrival of four small boats whose crew members claimed to have received WhatsApp alerts about an alleged fish escape before net damage was confirmed, support the criminal complaint for malicious damage to pen nets filed by the company Caleta Bay before the Calbuco Guarantee Court, reported the newspaper El Llanquihue on Monday.

The legal action seeks to criminally sanction the attempt carried out underwater to cause the escape of coho salmon from the San Antonio fish farm, located in the coastal sector of El Dao, Calbuco. Legislation punishes such actions with penalties associated with the crime of theft in an uninhabited place.

The incident occurred in the early hours of Tuesday, October 6. The farm has a central module comprised of 32 cage rafts arranged in two rows. The reported sabotage focused on cage number 101, which is located at the northwest end of the complex and contained 37,344 coho salmon with an average weight of approximately 2.5 kilos per unit, representing around 93 tonnes of biomass.

Reconstruction of the crime

According to the document submitted to the court, the detailed data from the farm's surveillance equipment allowed for a minute-by-minute reconstruction of the events of that night. It all began at 4.56am, when a hydrophone installed on the seabed detected a boat passing by. Between 4.59am and 5.05am, the hydrophone recorded underwater noises consistent with the intentional cutting of fishing nets.

At 5.16am, a perimeter thermal camera focused on the shore and recorded an individual emerging from the sea, walking along the shore, and, after hiding in some bushes at 5.17am, running away from the scene. According to the plaintiffs, this audiovisual and hydrophone evidence directly proves the involvement of a diver equipped with cutting tools.

Later that day, an underwater inspection confirmed structural damage to the two containment barriers of the affected raft. Using a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), technical personnel located three openings of approximately 30 by 50 centimetres in the outer sea net, as well as zigzag cuts extending up to 15 metres in the inner fish net, all starting at a depth of four metres and extending towards the seabed.

Fishers got WhatsApp tip

While the condition of the facilities was being assessed, at around 10am that morning, the farm's workers noticed the presence of at least four small boats sailing around the raft that had been interfered with.

When the staff of the Calbuco Port Authority arrived at the scene at around 2pm to investigate the situation, the occupants of the boats stated that they had gone to the area with the intention of catching fish, after receiving messages spread through the WhatsApp social network that warned about an alleged escape of salmon.

According to the company's legal presentation, this circumstance would demonstrate external coordination prior to the company's official discovery of the net damage.

In response to the incident, Caleta Bay activated the protocols required by fishery regulations, notified Sernapesca (National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service), and began the official count of the fish in cage 101. Simultaneously, the company removed the damaged sections of the nets to place them under chain of custody for the corresponding expert analysis, and requested the intervention of the Navy's Intelligence Directorate.

Not the first time

The legal document also records an incident on September 25, 2026, when guards at the facility used spotlights to scare away another diver who was trying to enter the water without authorisation.

The chief prosecutor of Calbuco and spokesperson for the Regional Prosecutor's Office, Marcelo Maldonado, confirmed the formal opening of a criminal case for alleged sabotage and the instruction of various investigations to the PDI (Chilean Investigative Police).

He explained that, after inquiries directed to the Navy, “the preliminary administrative investigations by the naval institution did not detect any evidence of a salmon escape. However, Sernapesca will have to carry out the corresponding analyses within its jurisdiction.”