Spanish authorities detain ship under Moldovan banner with ten tons of hashish onboard

Chisinau, 19 June /MOLDPRES/ - The competent authorities of Spain have confiscated over ten tons of hashish onboard of a ship under Moldovan banner. The Naval Agency of Moldova informed that the ship would be excluded from the State Register of Ships and Moldova would not be sanctioned internationally, as the banner state bears no responsibility for the commercial activity of ships’ owners.  

Contacted by MOLDPRES, Harbour Master of the Giurgiulesti Port Victor Andrusca said that the ship of the type GENERAL CARGO had been seized while it was marching from the Oran port (Algeria), as a result of a joint operation between the anti-drug authorities from more states (Spain, Italy, France, Turkey), with the information support of the law-enforcement bodies from Moldova and the Moldova Naval Agency.   

For the moment, the ship and the Ukrainian crew are under arrest in the Cartagena port of Spain.

Andrusca noted that, according to the provisions of international treaties in the sea transport sector, in case of criminal offences onboard of ships, the jurisdiction and legislation of the riparian state, port state, banner state or the state the citizenship of which is held by the crew are enforced. Depending on the geographical situation of the ship at the moment when the offence was committed, the legislation of the state hit or which is most interested in the starting of the inquiry is enforced.  

At present, the Naval Agency of Moldova, jointly with the law-enforcement authorities from Moldova, keep in touch with the Spanish authorities, the ship’s owner and operator, the classification society in the files of which the ship is.

International media informed that the commercial ship ELG was boarded off the Cartagena coast on 17 June, after the 79-metre-long ship had been already sought by the Spanish police, based on information received from officers of Turkey, France and Italy. The drugs discovered onboard were wrapped up in 350 packages of big dimensions and hidden inside the ship.    

This is the second incident with a ship under Moldovan banner, which carries drugs, to be detained by the Spanish authorities. In 2018, a Breath tugboat, under Moldovan banner, with 1.4 tons of cocaine onboard, was detained nearby the Canary Islands.     

The harbour master of the Giurgiulesti Port said that 300 ships were presently navigating under the Moldovan banner, of which 120 sea ones. In the last years, more than 160 sea ships were erased from the State Register of Ships for diverse infringements of the legislation.