From gCaptain:
MSC Gayane Cocaine Bust: Affidavit Details High-Seas Rendezvous’ and Crew’s Effort to Conceal Drugs
New details are coming in about the massive cocaine bust in the Port of Philadelphia earlier this week, revealing an elaborate scheme involving members of the ship’s crew who used the ship’s crane to load the drugs during high-seas rendezvous’s with small boats.
This week’s cocaine bust on board the MSC Gayane Packer Marine Terminal in Philadelphia has blown up into one of the largest drug busts in U.S. history.
Authorities boarded the ship on Monday where they discovered some 16.5 tons of cocaine, worth an estimated street value of more than $1 billion, hidden inside shipping containers. While there, they arrested two of the ship’s crewmembers, Forofaavae Tiasaga, an able seaman, and Ivan Durasevic, the Second Mate, who admitted to their roles in the scheme in interviews with authorities. The details of the interviews were contained in a criminal complaint which included an affidavit by Homeland Security Special Agent Eric Mooney.
The affidavit revealed that Durasevic and Tiasaga, along with three other crew members, stood to be paid about $50,000 each for their respective roles in helping load and hide the drugs. It also showed that the ship was met by multiple small boats on at least two separate occasions during the ship’s previous voyage, and the drugs were loaded using the ship’s crane.
Only $50K? Amazed that these people would take this kind of risk for that amount.
Also, no mention of what tipped off the popo in Philadelphia.
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