THE Merchant Shipping Department (MSD) said yesterday it had not been informed of the detention of a Cypriot-flagged tanker by US authorities after 515 pounds of cocaine were found hidden on board.
Although the 60,000-tonne Greek-managed Aramis was released last week to discharge its 350,000 barrels of crude picked up in Ecuador, the ship was on its way back to San Francisco yesterday to help US authorities with their investigation, shipping newspaper Lloyds List said.
The drugs, which have an estimated street value of $20-$25 million, were discovered in the rudder of the Aramis on July 21 but the find was not publicised until this week. US authorities said it was the biggest drugs bust in a decade.
A press release issued in London, the US customs service said it raided the ship after a tip-off when the vessel was docked at the Martinez marina in San Francisco.
“This is a remarkable seizure,” the port’s customs director Alice Rigdon told a news conference. Nearly 200 bricks of cocaine wrapped in plastic were found in duffel bags in the vessel’s hold. The bags were suspended by nets in a hatch that led to the water.
US authorities said the bags would simply have been cut free and allowed to drop into the water where they would be picked up by a small boat. They believe it was the work of a major drugs syndicate.
After determining that the Greek master had taken precautions while docked in Ecuador, including confining the crew to quarters, searching the vessel and using security on the gangway, the Aramis was released.
“Because the master had searched the vessel and had security and because we could not pin it to one crew member, we could not confiscate the vessel,” Rigdon said. However she added that the owners, Fragola Shipping Co., could face a fine.
The Aramis was allowed to continue its journey to deliver the cargo to a US refinery and is on its way back to San Francisco, in what Lloyds called an “intriguing twist”. It did not elaborate.
But in Cyprus, MSD senior surveyor Captain Andreas Constantinou said they had not been informed of the incident by the US authorities. “We received no notification,” he said. “Usually in cases like this we would not have any involvement unless asked to by the authorities conducting the investigation.”
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
