Twenty-seven days at sea, stuck in a leaky semi-submerged vessel that's not much better than a glorified tin can, with two strangers – one of them, a killer with a gun. The engines keep failing. The food is running out. And 3000 kilos of cocaine are on board that's gradually turning the air toxic.
It sounds like a nightmare. And for Nando, the Galician boxer-turned-smuggler at the centre of four-part drama Operation Black Tide, it is. Nando isn't an innocent. And we, the viewers, know it – but one of the things that makes this Spanish-Portuguese drama very watchable is that it shows how easily ordinary lives can go very wrong. Disappointment, betrayal, the temptation of 'easy' money …
Operation Black Tide is based on real events. In 2019, three men travelled more than 5000 kilometres from South America to the Galician coast, in a semi-submersible loaded with 3068kg of cocaine with a market value of 123 million euros (over AU$800 million). A semi-submersible is a long, narrow boat that sits mostly underwater, with only a tiny space for the crew (a "floating coffin", as one character describes it in the series). It's a hellish place to be for weeks on end.
The journey – and the hunt by police from Spain, Portugal and other countries to capture the boat and its cargo – created headlines. The story of the building of the boat and the journey across the Atlantic prompted a by Galician journalist Javier Romero; a that explores the history of these narco-subs, the challenges authorities face trying to stop them, and the hideous conditions on board; and this where the action centres around the semi-submersible's pilot. The series takes its title (Operación Marea Negra in the original Spanish) from the name of the operation undertaken by authorities in Galicia to apprehend the boat.
When we first meet him, well before the drama at sea, Nando is a talented boxer, helping his grandfather run a fishing boat and working a second job as a security guard. But an encounter with his cousin Gema (Nerea Barros), who's clearly rolling in money, sees him make a series of bad decisions.
Things get desperate after weeks at sea for Nando (Álex González). Source: Ficcion
Álex González (right) as Nando and Manuel Manquiña as his grandfather Anton. Source: Ficcion
Spanish TV and film actor Álex González (a high-profile actor in Spain, and also seen in films such as X-Men: First Class) carries the show as Nando, creating a grittily good-looking character who remains sympathetic, a criminal whose bad choices eventually see him flying to South America to take on a desperate smuggling mission.
Rounding out the key characters are multi-award winning Portuguese actor and DJ, Nuno Lopez as Nando's associate Sergio; Manuel Manquiña (whose wonderfully long and melodic full name is Manuel Juan Francisco del Cristo de la Victoria Prieto Comesaña) as his hardworking grandfather Anton; David Trejos and Leandro Firmino as the other two sharing the hellish journey at sea; and Lucia Moniz (a Portuguese actress and singer who placed sixth in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1996) and Xosé Barato (a Spanish actor and writer, originally from Galicia, where some of the action is set) as the police playing key roles in the chase to find and stop the boat.
The series is inspired by the real-life events, rather than reflecting them fact by fact. On the real Che – the name given to both the real and fictitious boat – the other smugglers were two Ecuadorian cousins, not the Colombian and Brazilian seen in the drama. And the pilot's name was Agustin, not Nando. But he was a boxer. He did save all their lives when the boat was almost destroyed by a passing tanker. And the journey was indeed an incredibly dangerous undertaking, as the similarly named documentary series, Operation Black Tide: Suicide Voyage, quickly makes clear.
In the Amazon: Nuno Lopez and Álex González. Source: Ficcion
The boat endured terrible weather at times. One of the many experts and intelligence personnel interviewed in the documentary series described it as like living in a washing machine. Then there's the cocaine. "The journey for these people who make their way carrying all this alkaloid is truly hell. Normally, three or four people travel aboard this type of semi-submersible… it is such a confined space, so small… they are exposed to fuel fumes and the fumes generated by the alkaloids they transport," explains another of those interviewed.
A former semi-sub crew member, speaking with his face hidden and voice disguised, explains conditions on board.
"During the crossing, one has almost no room to move. There is too little space, because of the cargo, the motors… Everything is designed to take up as little space as possible so that it's as inconspicuous as possible. Therefore, the space we had is very limited. Scarcely enough to lie down."
The four-part documentary series explores the building of these risky, minimalist boats, the drug trade they are part of, and the challenges the authorities face in trying to track and intercept the semi-submersibles – including the chase for the Che.
A semi-submersible shown in 'Operation Black Tide: Suicide Voyage'. Source: Ficcion
If you’re wondering which of these to watch first, the answer is definitely the drama series. It will have you thinking about choices, about what close confinement does to people, about desperate acts, in ways you might not expect from a story about drug smuggling. Then watch the documentary series (made by the same production company, but a very different result) to understand more of the harsher realities of the semi-sub drug trade and the international efforts to stop it – and what eventually happened to the real trio who made the journey in 2019.
Four-part drama series is streaming now at SBS On Demand, as is the documentary series . Start with the first episode of the drama series:
