Tag: smuggling

Data by Brazilian police and customs authorities indicate a substantial increase in the number of occurrences and the amounts of cocaine interdicted in port facilities and aboard vessels, a new publication reveals. 

China foiled criminals seeking to smuggle nearly 1 million tonnes of refined oil worth 5 billion yuan ($770 million), with officials seizing 11 ships and detaining 171 suspects in a sprawling swoop, as Reuters reported.

Standard's Club local correspondents in Columbia (A&A Multiprime) issued a circular to infrom on the precautions concerning drugs smuggling at Colombian ports.

The Standard Club reports that according to the amended Pooling Agreement of the International Group, P&I cover in respect of fines for smuggling and breach of customs regulations will no longer provided as of right, but only on a discretionary basis.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have seized a Panama-registered vessel in the Gulf for smuggling 300.000 liters of fuel, while detained all of its crewmembers, Fars news agency reported.

With the maritime industry continually improving anti-narcotics operations around the world, traffickers are finding increasingly novel and ingenious ways of smuggling drugs.  Ian Short and Sam Jones, experts from Campbell Johnson Clark's London office, explore the indirect legal and commercial consequences to shipowners and charterers arising out of delays and losses caused.

Recently, a ship had just departed a Mexican port, when two trespassers were observed throwing three packages into the water and then jumping overboard themselves. Both the packages and the trespassers were retrieved by a small craft.

Three customs officers lost their lives as their boat capsized on January 21, in waters off Hong Kong International Airport. Two crew members survived the incident, however the cause of the accident is not yet known.

North informs that recent incidents of criminals using cargo ships to smuggle narcotics have highlighted specific routes that are being targeted by smugglers. Namely, one route is Barranquilla to Altamira, as there has been a notable increase in the finding of cocaine on vessels trading from Colombia to Mexico. In most of the cases, bulk carriers have been targeted. The drugs, in the form of packaged cocaine were buried within the cargo and were only discovered during discharge operations.

The US Navy and maritime forces from 10 Indo-Pacific partner countries started the 18th iteration of Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT) in Singapore, August 19. The goal of the SEACAT exercise is to gather regional partner nations to engage in "real world, real time" training designed to enhance partner nation ability to communicate, coordinate and counter illegal smuggling and piracy.