"Dude, I smoked a boat last night"

[tangaroa]

Two drug smuggling ships were caught in the Mediterranean, both freighters registered in Tanzania, both carrying hashish, with both crews setting the cargo on fire after they were approached. Sounds interesting. Current estimates of the amount of drugs are 30 tons on the Gold Star and 20 tons on the Luna-S. These are police estimates of drug volume so they might get reduced to a sandwich baggy in some guy's locker on each boat by next weekend [EDIT: The Gold Star's cargo is down to 3.75 tons but they're blaming the fire for that], but from here and now it looks like an awful lot was intercepted. A website claiming to list the largest drug seizures in history would include either of these two ships near the top. This is going to be a huge hit to the smugglers.

I suspect that both drug ships belong to the same drug ring and that someone decided to bring the hammer down on them. My pet hypothesis is that one drug org is siccing the cops on its competition.

Gold Star

One ship was the Gold Star, IMO 7393860, formerly known as the Breogan and the Ibrahim Junior and registered to "Gold Star Shipping" in the Marshall Islands. The ship's previous names were in Spanish (Estella de Mar, Inezgane, Puerto Suances, Suecia); Breogan is a figure in Irish mythology who lived in the Galician region of Spain; and Ibrahim Junior suggests the previous buyer is a Westernized Arab or a Westerner pretending to be Arab for business reasons.

From International Registries, the Marshall Islands record for Gold Star Shipping is:

Entity Number: 44329
Entity Name: Gold Star Shipping Co. S. A.
Entity Status: Annulled
Existence Date: 22-Nov-2010
Annulment Data: 20-Jul-2012

There is a Gold Star Shipping S.A. company out of Greece. I would guess that the smugglers stole the name.

In March 2012, the Italian Coast Guard in Trieste ordered the Gold Star detained for six days for repairs. This could be a legitimate detention order, a harassment of suspected smugglers, or a move by the police to buy time and keep the suspects in sight for a few days and see who they talk to.

The Gold Star tends to travel between Egypt's Port Said, Turkey's Iskenderun, Algeria's Mostagnem, and and the Syrian port of Tartus. Tartus is under loyalist control, being the (former?) location of a Russian naval base.

As the Breogan, the Gold Star had previously been owned by Lotero Norte de la Marina and managed by Macogasa. Lotero Norte is registered in Panama. Macogasa is a Spanish company, Marítima Y Comercial Gallega, S.A.

Luna-S

AFP says the Luna-S had most recently departed Morocco and was heading toward Egypt.

The June 2013 journal of the World Ship Society lists the Luna-S as the recently renamed Lady Mary, IMO 7361491, formerly the Lady Nemat, Lady Hesen, Lady Hassan, Lady Seebrise, Lindaunis, Hispania, and Isle of Man, transferred from Jim Shipping Ltd of the Comoros to the Luna Marine Co SA of Zanzibar. As the Lady Mary, the Luna-S had been managed by Global Management & Trading Tripoli of Lebanon which owns several ships that are mostly flagged to Cambodia or Togo.

Jim Shipping

Jim Shipping Ltd is run from Beirut and shares an address with Abou Merhi Ship Management SAL. The website for Abou Merhi Lines is in English, not Arabic or even the colonial language French. That is odd.

The Italian coast guard also detained the Luna-S (as the Lady Mary) for one day in Janauary 2010. They listed Jim Shipping Ltd as a Delaware corporation. Jim Shipping was registered by Global Corporate Services of Wilmington, Delaware. GCS seems to be run by the law firm of Tighe and Cottrell, with several businesses sharing the same street address of 704 N King St Ste 500. The most interesting of these businesses is Anansi Aeronautics, which owned a plane that crashed near the Grand Canyon, killing two, one of whom "worked for the US government for a period of time". Both were pilots who owned their own IT consulting firms. The other guy was piloting the plane, so it's apparently that other guy who was the connection to Anansi.

Zain Shipping

Luna Marine Co has an address in Tartus, Syria as a subsidiary of the Zain Shipping Co of the Marshall Islands, whose registration was annulled in May 2012. Clarksons says that Zain owns four vessels: Luna-S, Island Princess (former Hanne Stevns), Leona (former Taibah I), and Zain (former Arab Leo).

The Island Princess / Hanne Stevns, IMO 6723616, is reportedly owned and managed by Oceanic Traders of Mumbai, India. Despite being the "Island Princess" since 1981, it is not listed in some online ship registries. Oceanic Traders has a contact named Dinesh Shah, which is as common a name as John Smith. He is supposedly an automobile parts salesman.

The Leona / Taibah I, IMO 7102572, is classified as a livestock carrier with no more information in any of the ship databases.

The Zain / Arab Leo, IMO 8303769, is flagged to the UAE and spends its time going between Gulf oil fields, including those of Iran.

Adam

La Provence ties these seizures to the April seizure of the ship Adam which was carrying marijuana from Morocco to Libya. That ship has IMO number 8804775 and was managed by Euro Med Trade Co of Egypt. Clarksons lists Euro Med Trade Co as having two ships, the Noah (IMO 8519954, former River Carrier, Curlew, and Hoocrest) and the Adam (former Finch, Ariadne, Fulmar, and Hoo Finch). The names "Adam" and "Noah" suggest a Western, Judeo-Christian influence like an American fundamentalist. The Hoo prefix is used by ships of John I. Jacobs Ltd of London and refers to the Lapthornes of Hoo, Rochester.

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While the seizures are most likely the result of good old policework, I have a pet hypothesis that someone provided enough information to target one specific drug ring for a strategic purpose. There's not enough information to say who either side was. There are enough fragments to begin to suspect just about everybody operating in the Mediterranean region. The most obvious reason would be for one gang to knock out a competitor and establish higher prices for its own drugs. The timing of the Syria conflict presents another possibility: this could be the CIA hitting Syria's money supply. Or it could be Syria and Russia hitting the CIA as a response to the arming of AQ forces as alleged by Bodansky. We don't know enough to say anything about it, but I'm not going to let that stop me.

I'm surprised at how little press this story is getting given that it involves fire and drugs and novelty and high seas adventure and a second big event to keep the story in the news after the first one. The Daily Show covered it, but that's about it for the English-language press.