Yes, they may well have done those things.
defrauding investors.
Then, suddenly, you make something up from whole cloth.
And you really can’t just put stuff at the bottom of a channel. That’s a navigational hazard. Could catch anchors, anchors could break it spewing stuff in the water. I just finished re-reading Neal Stephenson’s article about underwater cables. The bottom of the ocean is crowded, and paperwork matters.
This is not 'the ocean' per se, this is a channel.
And, do you really think anyone would be stupid enough to locate valuables in a dredging zone or a shipping zone? I'm sure it was much more likely they places the containers in a 6 foot deep location near the shore, most likely near or at a seafront property one of the principals owned.
I didn’t make that up. Read your own article:
“ and aiding and abetting investor fraud. (Azzaretto and Hahn have also been required to pay $50,000 in restitution to that investor.) “
A water way is a water way is a water way. If you’re putting hazards in it you have to chart it. That way everybody knows how to avoid it. The only thing that changes with it being a channel and not the ocean is HOW you chart it.
They put things in the Santa Barbara Channel! That IS a shipping zone AND it gets dredged twice a year. Now they might have found a nice corner that wasn’t in the shipping and dredging lane. But given how little of their homework they did, I think if they did that it was luck more than planning.