He had a nice boat in the Keys. Police say it was stolen in Fort Lauderdale a year ago

A routine vessel safety check by state fish and wildlife officers in the Florida Keys turned up a boat that was stolen from Fort Lauderdale more than a year ago.

The man caught at the helm of the 22-foot Boston Whaler, Juan Miguel Alfonso Rodriguez, 35, is being held on a list of felony charges in Monroe County jail on bond of $44,500. He was arrested on a warrant at his home in Marathon Tuesday.

On Oct. 31, two Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers pulled up to the vessel when Rodriguez and two other men were fishing off Marathon.

The officers thought the boat’s hull identification numbers looked strange and told Rodriguez to drive the vessel back to from where he launched it, which was his home on Grouper Drive.

The hull ID numbers were also displayed in a way that indicated that the original digits had been either removed or painted over, the officers said in their report.

After running the boat’s Florida registration numbers, police discovered it was stolen in September 2019, the report states. The boat’s trailer parked in the yard had also been reported stolen, according to the report.

Rodriguez told the FWC officers that he bought the boat, its 225-horsepower engine and the trailer for $10,000.