#5 The 'MSC' rang a bell, so here. The complex nature of the enterprise is mind-boggling, but understand that it must have grown 'organically' over decades, helped along by almost every govt. and every authority involved.
The MSC Gayane is owned and operated by MSC. Mediterranean Shipping Company (based in Europe) has 54 ships in its fleet. It is not Swiss. The Gayane's previous stops included Freeport (Bahamas) on June 13, Cristobal(Panama) on June 9 and till May 24 and Buenaventura (Colombia) on May 19. At least twice while the ship was en route between stops in Chile and Panama, numerous smaller boats approached the Gayane at sea to hand off large bundles of cocaine.
While the company's papers say it is abstractly European, it's owned by none other than Diego Aponte, son of late Gian Luigi Aponte - patriarch of the Aponte family. Gianluigi Aponte was awarded the Neapolitan Excellence in the World title in 2009 by the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (yupp!)
From humble beginnings in the late 80s, a fleet of twelve barely seaworthy carriers, it was given port in Baltimore Marine first by Mayor William Donald Schaefer (D), later Guvnor of Maryland and occasional voice of America's passive war on drugs. Anyway, twelve years on, MSC had become the world's second largest cargo carrier with ships in every port. The Apontes are said to practically rule over Italian port authorities and there have been some 'closed' investigations into MSC and mafia activity at Gioia Tauro. A port where 119 kilos of cocaine were caught by Italian police in Jan, from which 90 kilos later disappeared from custody. Searching for data on any Aponte linked criminal activity won't find you anything on google. Another co. owned by the Aponte family, the finance arm of MSC is Marinvest.
In 2006, an agency in Asia was faced with a dire case. A disappeared Indian coast guard officer. It was thought it was some kind of personal thing, that he'd ran off or was on a jaunt with a female but it soon became apparent that he was being hounded through Bombay and lived on the road for ten days before disappearing altogether. His name was A. Dinesh. A DOC file was obtained from his personal laptop during investigation, which was ordered closed by someone high up in New Delhi.
This is part of what it said.
MSC as it well known in the shipping company is a well known shipping company in the maritime industry which is run by an Italian mafia known by the name of Aponthe . They are a container ship company , have a large fleet of mostly junk ships over 95 % of their fleet of 300 ships comprises of 25 to 40 years old ships . They mostly buy old ships which are supposed to be scrapped and convert them to container ships and run the ships to support their own illegal businesses namely , drug ,illegal arms & ammunition , human trafficking , bombs and nuclear weapons , tranportation and distribution around the world to various countries of the world which most surprisingly includes some of the ,most developed countries with very stricty laws as the USA , Australia , France , Germany , UK , Belgium , Denmark , Norway , Japan , Singapore etc. They have got full support of their shore based staff including their agents in various ports , the customs at various ports , the Port state control officers which includes some of the most advanced nations , political support , all of which can be bought very easily with their money , political connections and of course threats from local mafias .
Almost 90 % of their ships do not follow any IMO , ILO or National & local regulations , are sub -standard so much below standard which cannot be described , most of the crew being incompetent,officers get very fast promotion . Senior masters and chief engineers become part of handsome bonuses if they pass PSC inspections and other special inspections at various ports and if they are carrying "special" illegal cargoes on board "unscathed" . The rest of the crew including even the chief officer doesn't have the knowledge of such special cargoes onboard and sometimes even the master doesn't know about it . MSC is popularly known as the MAFIA SHIPPING COMPANY in the maritime industry main business is not transportation of cargo , but supporting their drug business . So , even after 10 millions in fine given to the USCG for the MSC Elena case where their Master Capt. Menon and Chief Engineer Mani Singh were fined and imprisoned ,company got a prohibition of 5 years. A drug search has never been conducted on any of their vessels . I'm 100 % sure that if this kind of search is conducted then at least 1 of the containers on their every ship will be found to carry either illegal drugs , arms , ammunitions , bombs or involvewd in human trafficking. Besides you always a soft target if you are one of the types who believes in "safer shipping cleaner seas" or the like , because if u create too much of "noise" or suspect that you might "blow" the "whistle" then you might be eliminated as well either onboard at sea or at port while you are on a shore leave or after your sign off during your transit to your home town which includes your hotel stay at the port/country where you have signed off (sic)
The original text is too long and rambles into investigations conducted and details of interruptions, coercion by Indian coast guard officials and what to do in case of his death.
Also see:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-04/macron-s-chief-of-staff-probed-over-links-to-shipping-firm-msc
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[NYPOST] Federal authorities discovered 16.5 tons of cocaine on a ship in a Philadelphia port and arrested members of the crew in one of the largest drug busts in the area’s history, authorities said Tuesday.