On Jan. 25, 2022, a Jacksonville-based tugboat crew returning from a job in Puerto Rico found an overturned 25-foot boat with a man sitting on the hull floating about 45 miles off Fort Pierce Inlet.
The crew rescued 22-year-old Juan Esteban Montoya, who later told federal agents he and his 18-year-old sister were among 40 people on the boat when its engines stopped just two hours into the trip and it began taking on water in increasingly rough seas before capsizing.
Twelve people initially surfaced, he said, but not his sister, Maria Camila Montoya Caicedo…