When 19 tons of cocaine were found on a container ship at the port of Philadelphia three weeks ago, America’s mainstream media, led by the Washington Post and the Associated Press, stood as one and pointed the finger at MSC, Mediterranean Shipping Company, the second largest container shipping line in the world.
“MSC Gayane is a cargo ship owned by Swiss firm MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co.,” reported the Washington Post.
They were wrong.
“Wrong…again? You don’t say.”
When prosecutors announced at the beginning of the week, they were seizing the $90 million ship, America’s mainstream media in its collective wisdom changed its mind.
Now they are reporting that JP Morgan is the owner of the container ship and may be getting ready to take the hit.
“JPMorgan Might Lose a Drug Ship” reported Bloomberg.
The guy at the Daily Mail sounds like he’s been reading the MadCowNews, not that he’d ever admit it. “REVEALED: How JPMorgan’s stodgy asset management division came to own a ship that was seized in Philadelphia carrying 20 tons of COCAINE worth $1.3billion.”
CNN, Wall Street Journal, CBS, Forbes, even Sean Hannity & Breitbart—the last place you’d think to look for fake news!— said the same thing. Even People magazine fell into line.
They are wrong again. They were closer to the truth the first time.
What’s causing the consternation is obvious. They have not been able to come up with a workable cover story yet. And who can blame them?
19 tons of cocaine is a lot to sweep under the rug.
Instead, the dust is really starting to hit the fan.
US Attorney tries looking Rudy Guiliani-esque
It’s almost the middle of July, and in re the container ship busted in Philadelphia recently, we are already into high cotton.
Take US Attorney William McSwain. At first, he was so excited to take credit for the huge seizure that he had a hard time restraining himself from tweeting in ALL CAPS.
He probably had visions of riding the big bust to ever-higher office. Maybe began to think of himself as being Rudy Guiliani-esque.
But now the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is on the horns of a dilemma that might just burst his balloon.
In what is one of the biggest cocaine busts in US history, he needs to find someone to charge with the crime that occupies a slightly loftier place in society than the guy he’s got now.
Second Mate Ivan Durasevich is a convenient fall guy, sure. But he makes an even poorer impression as a drug kingpin than that Mexican guy wearing a ball cap did.
Every time US Attorney William McSwain opens his mouth, you can feel him shuffling his feet at the same time.
“A seizure of a vessel this massive is complicated and unprecedented — but it is appropriate because the circumstances here are also unprecedented,” he said, adding, “We found nearly 20 tons of cocaine hidden on this ship.”
What he’d normally do is stake out the seven containers filled with cocaine and see who shows up to claim it.
But that horse left the corral as soon as he began touting his big bust on Twitter. Now what?
Can you say The ‘Ndrangheta? Me either.
The last thing the US Government wants to do is announce that:
1. The 19 tons of cocaine belongs to the most powerful crime syndicate in the world. And
2. The top dog transnational organized crime outfit today has a name most reporters—let alone most Americans—can’t even pronounce.
It’s called The ‘Ndrangheta (/(ən)dræŋˈɡɛtə/). Good luck trying to find someone to explain why it’s got an apostrophe in front of it.
Wikileaks says The ‘Ndranegata is a Mafia-type organized crime group based in Calabria, Italy. Despite not being as famous abroad as the Sicilian Mafia and having been considered more rural than the Neapolitan Camorra and the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita, the ‘Ndrangheta became the most powerful crime syndicate in Italy in the early 21st century and hasn’t looked back.”
The world is in the middle of a container ship crime wave U.S. federal law enforcement hasn’t bothered to tell anyone about. An MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company) crime wave.
The big question is: Why hasn’t Federal law enforcement alerted Americans to this threat?
Remember what The Captain of the prison farm tells ‘ol Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke?
“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”
“As if five just this year weren’t enough “
Last week I retailed four recent incidents in which MSC container ships were caught carrying cocaine.
There’s the MSC Gayane busted in Philadelphia, obviously, carrying almost 20 tons of cocaine.
Three months earlier the MSC Desiree was caught at the port in Baltimore, carrying a stash of cocaine worth $38 million.
In February, almost 1.5 tons of cocaine was found on another MSC cargo vessel, the MSC Carlotta, at the port of Newark.
And in April, 2.2 tons of cocaine was seized—again from the MSC Carlotta—in Callao, Peru.
Then earlier this week I added a fifth. An MSC ship arrived in Montenegro from Sicily on March 15, 2019 carrying 30 kilograms of cocaine.
Crime wave rolls on unnoticed
I have since found another eight. The total is now at least thirteen. This decade.
- In 2010, fishermen were arrested off the Isle of Wight while attempting to recover eleven bags of cocaine dropped in the English Channel from MSC Oriane from Brazil.
- In 2012, the MSC Poh Lin was intercepted at the port of Gioia Tauro Italy with 300 kilos of cocaine hidden in three containers. Amid talk that the Captain was Mafia, which is what got him his job, the captain and crew, all employees of MSC, were arrested.
- In 2016, the MSC Poh Lin and her crew were arrested again, while preparing to drop 80 kilos of cocaine off near the same Calabrian port.
- On August 20, 2015, 350 kg of cocaine were found on the MSC Krystal in Santos, Brazil.
- In March of the same year, more than 500 Kg of cocaine were seized by the Italian security services on another ship belonging to the shipping company MSC.
- On 14 July 2017, in the Dardanelles Strait, which connects the Mediterranean with the Black Sea, Turkish authorities boarded the MSC Donata and found 212 Kg of pure cocaine on board.
- In February 2018 at the Port of Santos in Brazil, the police found more than 80 kg of cocaine on the container ship MSC Meline .
- And in May 2018, on the Vega Mercury, a boat chartered by MSC, arriving from the container terminal in Valencia managed by MSC, authorities found 700 Kg of pure cocaine in the port of Oran.
‘Ol Sticky-fingers’ Jamie Dimon: Skating again?
Anyone hoping to stick it to ‘ol sticky fingers too-big-to-fail banker Jamie Dimon may find their hopes cruelly dashed. As someone helpfully pointed out to me, there is no longer a JP Morgan Global Maritime. It changed its name two years ago to Global Maritime.
Side note: For the conspiracy-minded—and who these days is not? —what used to be JPMorgan Global Maritime is located two doors down from London’s infamous Blackfriars Bridge, where Italian Roberto Calvi—known as the Vatican’s banker—was found swinging on the end of a rope.
In re the MSC Guyane, financial analysts on Wall Street believe JP Morgan has zero liability.
“I’m sure JPMorgan was just a blind mule,” one said. “Somebody else packed their ship for them. You know how it is.”
Another wrote, “The thing is, this is not even a case of JPMorgan operating a ship and some rogue employees stuffing it full of cocaine. This is a case of MSC operating a ship—you know, like a shipping company—and some rogue employees stuffing it full of cocaine. It’s not JPMorgan’s ship.”
“JPMorgan’s ownership is a financing matter; this is not JPMorgan deciding to buy a boat and then renting it out to MSC, it’s MSC deciding to get the money to finance its boat from JPMorgan, and it making sense to structure that financing transaction as a lease rather than a loan.”
“If I were JPMorgan I’d be mad. I’d want my $90 million back. Loading it with drugs and sailing it into the hands of U.S. Customs seems a particularly reckless way to lose a ship.”
Did somebody say reckless?
Is there an outfit involved in the huge 19-ton drug move gone bad which very much feels the need to act recklessly?
Well, yes. And while it is likely responsible for the 20 tons of cocaine, it is the only unsavory organization whose name has not yet been mentioned in our valiant mainstream media.
Stay tuned.
[…] 19 tons of cocaine busted at the port of Philadelphia in June belonged to the Russian Mob. So is the 4.5 tons of cocaine seized at the port of Hamburg two weeks […]
This may interest you. https://youtu.be/nvZlc0JGGDI
Hi Daniel,
I don’t know if you follow this blog but thought I would send it along. Maybe something useful in there…
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/07/20/three-things-two-usas-and-a-bear/
[…] CONTAINER SHIP CRIME WAVE! — MadCow — Read on http://www.madcowprod.com/2019/07/12/container-ship-crime-wave/ […]
Hi Mr. Hopsicker,
I need to talk to you about using a few excerpts from your book Barry & ‘the boys’ in a book I’m publishing. Please contact me at your earliest convenience. Thank you.