…As Argentina ends missing submarine rescue mission***
A British man whose wife mysteriously vanished while they were sailing off the coast of Cuba has admitted smuggling stolen coins worth thousands.
Lewis Bennett, 40, faces up to 10 years in prison after changing his plea to guilty in a federal court in Miami on Thursday over the charge of transporting stolen property.
The gold and silver collectables were allegedly from a batch worth up to $100,000 (£75,000) that Bennett reported as being burgled from his employer a year before his rescue.
The FBI brought the charge as it investigated the disappearance of Isabella Hellmann, the mother of Bennett’s baby, whom he reported missing while the 37ft catamaran was sinking.
Bennett, who was reportedly faced by Hellmann’s family as he appeared in court, will be sentenced on 12 February and could be fined a maximum of $250,000 as well as jailed.
The couple had been sailing home from Havana to Florida when Bennett, a British-Australian dual citizen, made an SOS call in the early hours of 15 May.
He said he had been awoken by a large thud, having last seen his wife the evening before when he left her in charge of the boat, Surf Into Summer.
Bennett was rescued from his life raft with an “unusually heavy” bag but left behind luggage including some of the stolen gold and silver coins, according to an FBI special agent, James Kelley.
Around a week later the coins were returned to Bennett at the home in Delary Beach, Florida, that he had shared with Hellmann, 41, an estate agent.
Later that day the FBI realised Bennett had reported that the coins had been burgled along with others from an employer’s boat in the Caribbean country of St Maarten a year earlier, prosecutors said.
Investigators returned to search Bennett’s home and found a further 162 gold coins hidden in a pair of boat shoes in a closet, according to court documents.
Prosecutors claimed all of the coins recovered were worth around $30,300.
In the meantime, the Argentine navy says it has abandoned attempts to rescue 44 crew members on board a submarine that disappeared two weeks ago.
“Despite the magnitude of the efforts made, it has not been possible to locate the submarine,” navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said on Thursday.
The sub, the ARA San Juan, last made contact on Wednesday 15 November.
Hopes of finding survivors faded after a suspected explosion was reported near its last-known location.
Capt Balbi said the search for the submarine had been “extended to more than double the number of days that determine the possibilities of rescuing the crew”.
His comment refers to the estimated period that it is thought the crew could have survived in the submerged vessel.
Capt Balbi said that despite not being able to confirm the fate of the crew, “no evidence of a shipwreck was found in the areas explored”.
He said that the “phase had changed” and that the operation, involving numerous vessels and other submarines, was now a hunt for a wreck on the seabed in the area where the ARA San Juan is believed to have vanished.
Guardian UK with additional report from BBC
