Ship carrying 30 tonnes of cannabis burning 30 miles off Malta
Something tells me there is much more to this than meets the eye. The Armed Forces of Malta are involved in the rescue operation.
The Italian Guardia di Finanza has released the information that the cargo is/was 30 tonnes of cannabis and that it may have been set alight deliberately to destroy the evidence.
30 tonnes of cannabis burning 30 miles off Malta? Which way is the wind blowing? Expect Malta to be even crazier today.
The missing information is – the port of departure and the port of destination. It’s pointless even bothering to hope that we’ll ever find out who was involved.
We still don’t know how HuJohnny Dalli’s ‘green soap cargo’ case ended up and that was years ago.
The Malta Independent reports:
The Italian Guardia di Finanza said today that a ship which caught fire some 30 miles north of Malta yesterday had been carrying drugs.
The mv Gold Star was carrying around 30 tons of cannabis, according to Guardia di Finanza.
It suggested that the ship may have been purposely set on fire in a bid to destroy the cargo and avoid arrest.
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One helluva spliff.
The MV Gold Star seems to have left Turkey and was destined for Egypt:
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?mmsi=677039200
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?oldmmsi=677039200&zoom=10&olddate=lastknown
Then why was it 30 miles off Malta?
This map shows the movements of the MV Gold Star for the past few months.
There are large intervals missing, not sure if because the captain deliberately turns off the AIS tracker or just missing information on the web site. In particular it turned up just north of Malta yesterday after being ‘off the radar’ for three weeks, when it was last in the vicinity of Egypt.
http://iidesk.com/aistracker/ais?noWPs=250&range=2&portrange=10&refresh.x=14&refresh.y=13
AIS works on VHF ( line of sight ) ranges, and several areas are out of range of shore antennae, hence the missing info.
Correct url:
https://iidesk.com/aistracker/ais?search=677039200
Cheech and Chong must be up to something…
Up in Smoke…….?
Disembarking illegal immigrants wanting to land in Sicily?
Dope AND Dupes.
They will be needing a barge full of Twistees to satiate the munchies that will be caused with that much smoldering THC laden hemp.
Why was it 30 miles off Malta? Perhaps the ship had a rendezvous with a boatload of “irregular” refugees conveniently supplied with satellite cell-phones to arrange a “rescue” at sea and later landing them in Malta as a profitable side-line to shipping tons cannabis all over the Med.
“Kull laqxa tirfed l-imramma”.
Joint (excuse the pun) effort?
If it sinks we’re going to have some pretty happy fish swimming around.
Just ‘a distant ship smoke on the horizon’.
Epic.
Gives new meaning to high seas.
And there’s WOMEN ON BOARD. Nice.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415052/Bungling-drug-smugglers-set-50million-hash-jumped-overboard-caught-coastguard-Mediterranean.html
Nine people were arrested by the Italian Guardia di Finanza.
This must be the world Guiness book record for the largest joint in the world.
I had this nagging feeling that I should’ve gone to the Mellieha feast this year. Damn… Must’ve been a blast.
So much for the poor Sicilian fishermen and their €700 worth of prawns and hake.