“Most spectacular fraud in shipping history”

by Craig Jallal

Ince Gordon Dadds partner Carrie Radford and senior associate Lucy Espley comment on the extraordinary Brillante Virtuoso case

In 2011, the 1992-built Suezmax tanker Brillante Virtuoso was within Yemeni waters waiting for a security team. A small boat approached carrying seven armed persons. The master allowed them to board, apparently believing they were the security team. The ‘security team’ hijacked the ship and within hours set the vessel on fire. The ship was abandoned, the crew was rescued by a passing ship and Brillante Virtuoso was later sold for scrap.

The vessel’s owner, Suez Fortune Investments Limited, and mortgagee bank, Piraeus Bank AE, brought a claim on the vessel’s war risks policy for a constructive total loss, totalling US$77M, claiming that the loss of the vessel was caused by piracy or hijacking.

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Source: rivieramm.com

Pirates attacked Italian supply ship, two crew wounded, Mexico

NIKOLAY TORKIN

Italian offshore supply ship REMAS with 35 people on board was attacked by some 7-8 armed pirates in two fast boats on Nov 11, in Gulf pf Mexico, N of Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico. Pirates boarded the ship, in following skirmish two crew, both Italians, were wounded, but luckily, wounds aren’t life threatening. Pirates managed to loot the ship and the crew, and fled. Injured seamen were transferred to hospital, REMAS moved to Ciudad del Carmen anchorage and anchored.

Offshore supply ship REMAS, IMO 9586459, dwt 2681, built 2011, flag Italy, manager MICOPERI, Ravenna.

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Source: maritimebulletin.net

NEITI: Nigeria lost $42bn to oil theft in 10 years

By Regina Otokpa

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has raised the alarm that in the last 10 years, crude oil and refined products worth the sum of $42 billion were stolen from the country.

This was contained in a Policy Brief titled ‘Stemming the Increasing Cost of Oil Theft to Nigeria’ released and made available to newsmen by NEITI’s Director, Communications and Advocacy, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji yesterday in Abuja.

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Source: newtelegraphng.com

Oil theft bleeding the country dry

EXACTLY six years after Chatham House, an independent policy institute based in London, the United Kingdom, first alerted the world to the systemic theft of Nigerian oil “on an industrial scale”, the country is still haemorrhaging from the deep cut inflicted by massive oil theft. Instead of witnessing a stem-to-stern effort to check the grand larceny, the situation has profoundly worsened. Although the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation puts what is stolen at 120,000 barrels per day, a new report reveals that an average of 400,000 barrels of crude is purloined on a daily basis.

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Source: punchng.com

Pirates kidnap four crew from Greek boat off Togo – Togo navy

LOME (Reuters) – Pirates attacked a Greek oil tanker off the coast of Togo in the early hours of Monday and fled after taking four crew members as hostages, the West African nation’s navy said, two days after a similar attack in the waters of neighbouring Benin.

Of the missing crew members, two are Filipinos, one is Greek and one is Georgian, the navy said in a statement. One security guard was also shot and wounded in the attack, it said. “Monday, 4th of November 2019, around 0300, the tanker boat Elka Aristotle […] was attacked around 18 kilometres (11 miles) from the port of Lome by armed individuals,” the statement said.

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Source: euronews.com

4 Australian warships now in PH for various activities

By: Dale G. Israel

CEBU CITY –– Four Australian warships are in the Philippines for various activities, including military exercises, as part of their cooperation with their counterparts in the Philippine Navy and Coast Guard.

The frigate warships, including HMAS Stuart, HMAS Leeuwin, HMAS Sirius, and HMAS Ararat, participated in the recent commemoration of the Leyte Gulf Landing last Oct 20. They provided the backdrop in the reenactment event.

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Source: globalnation.inquirer.net

OMSL: SAA does not constitute a threat to national security

Ocean Marine Solution Limited (OMSL) has faulted the claim by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) that the Secure Anchorage Area (SSA) manned by it, in collaboration with the Nigerian Navy, constituted a threat to national security.

A Secure Anchorage Area is an area outside the Lagos port that the Nigerian Navy, together with OMSL, has defined as a secure place where vessels can anchor safely from the threat of pirate attacks.

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Source: nationalaccordnewspaper.com

West Africa: the center of maritime piracy, armed robbery and kidnap

Jim Wilson

Nearly all maritime kidnappings and hostage-takings in the nine months to the end of September this year took place in or near the Gulf of Guinea, said global maritime piracy watchdog the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

New data from the IMB shows that worldwide there have been 70 actual kidnappings of seafarers and 49 hostage-takings year to date. The West African country of Guinea alone saw 23 hostage-takings, Nigeria a further 12 and the West African country of Togo an additional seven. Cameroon and Nigeria were hot spots for kidnapping, too.

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Source: freightwaves.com

Gulf of Guinea: Security team comes alive in 3 months

By Godwin Oritse

In a bid to secure oil and gas operations as well as fishery activities in the Gulf of Guinea, countries in the region have agreed to set up an expert working team that would implement resolutions reached at the just concluded Gobal Maritime Security Conference, GMSC, held in Abuja, last week.

Disclosing this to newsmen at the end of the conference, Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, said that the team will be established within the next three months.

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Source: vanguardngr.com

Icacos fishermen freed after US$13,000 ransom paid

by Sharlene Rampersad

Three fishermen kidnapped by Venezuelan bandits and held for ransom were released late Wednesday night after US$13,000 was paid for their safe return.

Fishermen Ramkissoon Harricharan, 64, Carlo Sneider, 61, of Lovers Lane, Icacos and a 24-year-old Venezuelan man identified as Amelto were released by their captors on Wednesday night, shaken but in otherwise good health.

The three were snatched at gunpoint around 7 am on Tuesday while fishing off Galfa Point in Icacos about half a mile from the shore.

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Source: guardian.co.tt