NOVEMBER 22, 2016 — A senior engineering officer employed by Italian shipping company D’Amico was yesterday sentenced today to eight months in prison for deliberately concealing a vessel’s discharge of oily waste
OCTOBER 21, 2016 — U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour today sentenced the operator and the owner of the 74,133 Cyprus-flagged bulker Gallia Graeca to a $1.3 million fine for the dumping
SEPTEMBER 2, 2016 — A federal jury in Greenville, North Carolina, has convicted Oceanic Illsabe Limited, Oceanfleet Shipping Limited and two of their employees of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from
AUGUST 18, 2016 — South Korea’s Doorae Shipping has done it again. Back in April, the company was sentenced to pay a fine of $750,000 and a community service payment of $200,000
JUNE 21, 2016 — A U.S. District Court jury in Seattle yesterday convicted two shipping companies and two engineers on 12 felony counts related to the illegal discharge of oily wastewater from
APRIL 8, 2016 — The father and son owner and captain of a commercial fishing vessel, the Native Sun, were indicted Thursday for conspiracy and for violations of the Clean Water Act
APRIL 6, 2016 — South Korea’s Doorae Shipping was sentenced yesterday to pay a fine of $750,000 and a community service payment of $200,000 after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court in
MARCH 16,2016 — The 6,300 dwt Antigua & Barbuda flagged multipurpose tweendecker M/V BBC Magellan won’t be seen in the U.S. for the next five years. Yesterday the two German companies that
JANUARY 15, 2016 — A Turkish ship management company, Ciner Gemi Acente Isletni Sanayi Ve Ticaret S.A., is to pay $1.05 million after pleading guilty to violating the Act to Prevent Pollution
Oceanfleet Shipping Limited is a Greek shipping company that operates the 29,513 dwt Liberian-flag general cargo ship M/V Ocean Hope.
The two engineering officers indicted are the vessel’s Chief Engineer, Rustico Yabut Ignacio, 65, of the Philippines; and the Second Engineer, Cassius Flores Samson, 51, of the Philippines.
According to the indictment, in 2015 Samson bypassed pollution prevention equipment with an unauthorized hose connection, or “magic pipe,” to discharge oil sludge generated by the M/V Ocean Hope directly into the sea. Samson also ordered crew members on numerous other occasions to pump oily mixtures from the vessel’s bilges into the sea using the ship’s general service pump rather than processing these mixtures through the vessel’s pollution prevention equipment.
To hide the illegal discharges, Ignacio and Samson allegedly maintained a fictitious oil record book that failed to record the disposal, transfer, or overboard discharge of oil from the vessel. The oil record book also contained false entries stating that pollution prevention equipment had been used when it had not.
The indictment further alleges Ignacio and Samson ordered subordinate crew members to lie to the U.S. Coast Guard during an inspection in Wilmington, NC. The crew members were allegedly instructed to deny knowledge of the connection of the pipe used discharge sludge and to tell the Coast Guard that Oily Water Separator had been used as required under international law to process oily mixtures before discharge when they knew it had not.
Both engineering officers were charged with violating the federal Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships for failing to record overboard discharges in the vessel’s oil record book, conspiracy for their agreement to violate federal law, obstruction of justice for presenting false documents intended to deceive the Coast Guard and witness tampering for ordering subordinate crewmembers to mislead and lie to the Coast Guard.
Samson was also charged with false statements and obstruction of justice for lying to Coast Guard inspectors about the discharges.
The U.S. Coast Guard, Sector North Carolina, investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Banumathi Rangarajan with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina and Trial Attorneys Shane N. Waller and Brendan Selby with the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section are prosecuting the case.announced Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden for the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and U.S. Attorney Thomas G. Walker for the Eastern District of North Carolina.