GPS Data Raises Questions About Missing Millionaire

Guma Aguiar has been missing since June 19, but authorities still aren’t sure whether the missing millionaire is dead or alive, and new reports indicate GPS data suggests he may have switched boats before his ship was found abandoned.

According to ABC News, Aguiar, 35, was last seen June 19 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The next day his 31-foot yacht washed up on a beach. The lights were still on, but no one was home. Officially, it is a missing person’s case, but some have speculated that Aguiar chose to become a missing millionaire as a result of financial and mental problems. Other suggest he committed suicide.

The new details come from witness accounts and a U.S. Coast Guard analysis of the T.T. Zion’s (Aguiar’s ship) GPS trail. An NBC affiliate station’s reports that his boat follows a strange route, travelling northeast to four miles offshore, then turning abruptly and beginning to drift to shore.

There was a small craft warning for the area, and the man now known as the Missing Millionaire may have dealt with 17 mph winds and ocean waves of up to five feet and he could have been tossed overboard in an accident. But on the other hand, the GPS shows he headed northeast at 17 mph and slowed to eight mph during some small turns. He reached top speeds of 31 mph. At 7:56 p.m. he went southeast, slowing to less than one mph nearly four miles offshore. The boat then went west before drifting, south, then west again for several hours, stopping when it washed ashore.

“You can easily say he keeps working northeast towards whatever he’s looking for, sees it at the top of the triangle, goes to it, steps off the boat quickly, doesn’t even turn the engine off and lets it go,” Nathan Spaulding, an expert, told ABCNews.com. “It takes half a second to jump off another boat.”

Fort Lauderdale Police Det. Travis Mandell told ABC News that just about anything was possible, but right now foul play isn’t suspected.

“With (Aguiar’s) amount of means and what he is able to do, it would be quite easy for him to stage his own disappearance and it would be very difficult for us to find him,” he said.

If Aguiar is found alive, the Missing Millionaire will still have to face a series of lawsuits that threaten his fortune.