A viral tweet from the account @fasc1nate once again brought one of the strangest mysteries of the 21st century to the fore and showed that these days, almost 15 years after it happened, many are still asking:
Who stole the Trelawny beach? ?
"Baffled Jamaica", headlined the BBC three months after
an entire beach
was stolen in the Central American country.
What happened refuses to stay within logic: In July 2008,
more than 500 trucks washed up on the Coral Springs beach and hauled away all the sand
.
400 meters of sand disappeared as if by magic and to this day - and this is as curious as the fact itself - there are no culprits or charges applied against anyone.
And not to mention that someone knows where the loot is or what they did with it.
The viral tweet that revived the story.
The stolen beach had an exclusive destination: it was to be one of the most luxurious resorts in Trelawny.
At the time of the coup, a very expensive project was being carried out that would cost its developers 108 million dollars.
When what happened happened, the company suspended its plans and everything came to nothing.
The theft came to the attention of the Prime Minister at that time,
Bruce Golding
, who requested a report so that it could be clarified as soon as possible.
And the issue escalated into an internal conflict when the main opposition candidate blamed Golding for a cover-up.
A storm of theories broke out about who might have stolen the beach and why.
Mark Shields
, the Jamaica Police Force's deputy commissioner for crime, said in October 2008 that the investigation was “very complex” involving “so many aspects”.
“You have the recipients of the stolen arena, or what we think is the arena.
The trucks themselves, the organizers and, of course, there is some suspicion that some policemen were in collusion with those who transported the sand," the officer explained to the BBC.
The usual suspects
The theft is estimated to have been valued at
$70 million
.
Sand theft was a very common crime in some countries.
By 2011 there were five defendants.
But on February 9 of that year, the day they appeared at Falmouth Resident Magistrates Court, the Director of Public Prosecutions surprised them when she announced to Judge
Icolin Reid
that she would drop the charges of petty theft and conspiracy. Against them.
Diahann Gordon-Harrison
-the director- explained that she did it because the complainant, one of the managers of Felicitas, the company that owns the stolen beach, confessed to her that he had received very specific
death threats
so as not to speak in court.
As the judge found no evidence in the case file and the complainant did not appear, the five defendants were released.
Regarding the suspects, it can be said that two of them were powerful construction company directors and that all of them were arrested in 2008 because they had allegedly been hired by nearby hotels to steal the arena.
Also that one of his companies had sought contractors to help remove sand from the site.
Why did they steal the arena?
As you will have already predicted,
there is no certain answer to this question
.
Sand theft in certain countries is more common than you might think.
In India, for example, illegal sand mining is one of the largest organized criminal activities.
To this day, the mystery remains unsolved.
Photo: Jamaica Observer
The reasons that were considered about the Coral Springs robbery are various, but three stand out.
One has to do with
the high demand for construction materials
, which is often one of the main reasons for illegal mining.
Another is directly related to
developers
.
It was said that there were businessmen who could have been hired by nearby hotels so that the new complex would not hinder tourist activity in the area.
Third and last, there was talk that the sand was sold to Felicitas' "rivals" to improve their beaches.
In the two photographs uploaded by the Twitter account that recently revived the story, you can see how the beach turned out: smooth, without sand, with the marks of the trucks and completely desolate.
Beyond the dozens of theories and speculations, the question that remains over time is only one:
Who stole the Coral Spring beach?
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