Three cargo vessels that came to be broken at Alang ship-breaking yard in Gujarat have been seized by the Customs department and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) for operating with forged documents.
According to local authorities, the vessels — MV Sea Golden, MV Coral and MV Harriet have been detained at the Bhavnagar anchorage. While Sea Golden and Coral arrived on December 5, Harriet came on December 9.
“All the three are tankers and have been seized by customs and DRI at the anchorage,” said a senior official from Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB), which manages ship-breaking activities at Alang in Bhavnagar district.
While Harriet, detained by DRI, have “UN sanctions” and all the documents were found to be forged, the other two vessels detained by customs were found to have wrong IMO numbers, which are crucial identification numbers assigned to a ship during the construction of its hull, officials told The Indian Express news agency.
DRI officials refused to elaborate about the type of kind of UN sanctions, while custom department officials said that the IMO numbers of two cargo vessels were forged and it was found during mandatory checks conducted by the authorities. “Two ships have been seized by customs.
