The
surfeit of imaginative speculation in the world press about
the disappearance and reappearance in the Atlantic of a
Maltese cargo ship named the “Arctic Sea,” includes
even a scenario in The Harvard Crimson – taken no
less from a video game– in which a team of masked
Israeli Commandos drop out of the sky from a helicopter
onto the Arctic Sea, “subdue the crew and remove weapons
unlisted on the ship’s manifest.” Eye-popping
headlines such as “Was Russia's 'Hijacked' Ship Carrying
Missiles to the Mideast?” (Time Magazine), “Arctic
Sea ghost ship 'was carrying weapons to Iran'” (Daily
Telegraph) and “Missing channel pirate ship carried
Russian arms for Iran”(Times Of London) floated through
the media world but no one could be found who actually claimed
to have seen a cargo of missiles or other arms aboard the
so-called “ghost ship.” Nor was there a scintilla
of evidence that it was headed to Iran. What is known to
date is that the Arctic Sea is far more prosaic. It is registered
in Malta and owned and managed by two Finnish corporations,
Arctic Sea Ltd and Solchart Management Ab, which in turn
are owned and controlled by Victor Matveev, a Russian citizen.
and is manned by a Russian crew. Its last voyage began uneventfully
on July 23, 2009, in Jakobstad, Finland. After a routine
inspection by Finnish authorities for contraband, it left
with a timber cargo on a 2 week trip to Algeria. Its route
would take it through the English Channel to the Atlantic
and then, via the narrow strait of Gibraltar to the Algerian
port of Bejaia, in the Mediterranean. For the first week
of the voyage, the ship’s Automatic Identification
System sent out signals indicating that it was on its prescribed
course. All appeared normal when it made radio contact with
British authorities on July 28th as it passed into the Atlantic.
But on July 30, its Automatic Identification System stopped
sending out its position and the Arctic Sea did not go through
the strait of Gibraltar. On August 3rd, Renaissance Insurance
Group, the ship’s insurer in Moscow, received an phone
call demanding a ransom of 1.5 million Euros.
Meanwhile, Israel got into the act. According to a highly-reliable
source close to Mossad, Israel informed Moscow through intelligence
channels that it suspected the Arctic Sea was carrying a
hidden cargo of missiles and was on a course that could
take it to Iran. This warning helped galvanize the Russians
into action. The Russian Defense Ministry, after determining
that the ship was in the sea lanes off Africa, dispatched
the frigate Ladny to pursue it. On August 17th, after finding
the Arctic Sea in the Cape Verde Islands, Russian troops
boarded it and arrested 8 Russian non-crew members from
Estonia and Latvia– six of whom had served time in
prison. According to crew members, this gang had hijacked
the ship only a day after it left Finland, having allegedly
arrived an inflatable motor launch early in the mourning
of July 24th. After diverting the ship from its course,
the hijackers painted a new name on the ship, “Jon
Jin 2" in an apparent attempt to disguise it. According
to Russian defense ministry, the subsequent search of the
ship did not find missiles or other contraband. In addition,
a crew member interviewed by the New York Times confirmed
that “There was only lumber on board.” He said
“I was personally in all areas and in the ballast
tanks. There was nothing else in there. I can say this with
100 percent certainty.”
If so, why was Israel concerned that the ship might be carrying
a secret arms cargo? Such suspicion could well have been
triggered by the motor launch that the Russians found concealed
under a pile of timber on deck. Presumably, the hijackers
planned this vessel for they get away, but such a partially
camouflaged object with its pontoons could have be misinterpreted
by aerial surveillance as a hidden arms cargo.
The Russian search also found an intriguing discrepancy
in the cargo. According to the Russian news service RIA
Novosti, the Russians discovered that instead of the 6,000
tons of relatively-valuable hardwood listed on the ship’s
manifest there was cheap pine timber. If so, it raises the
question: why would a cheap cargo be substituted for an
expensive one– unless it was not intended to reach
the buyer in Algeria..
A key piece of the puzzle may be the ransom demand the insurer
received on August 3rd. Modern pirates typically hijack
a ship not for its cargo but to extort a ransom or other
payment from its insurer, and the Arctic Sea was heavily
insured. According to the security chief of its insurer,
Renaissance Insurance Group, the anonymous caller claiming
to represent the hijackers threatened to scuttle the ship
unless the company paid the 1.5 million Euros. But the caller
provided no instructions for paying this money, so apparently
the purpose of this call was merely to establish to the
insurer that this missing ship was in imminent danger of
being sunk. If not for the misguided intelligence about
missiles that set off an international search for it, the
Arctic Sea might have been quietly disappeared in the Cape
Verde Islands, making the insurer liable for insured value
of the lost ship and cargo. I
The Russian investigation headed by the celebrated deputy
chief prosecutor Alexander Bastrykin is now reportedly examining
such issues as to whether the ransom demand was actually
made by the captured hijackers, whether there was any complicity
by any crew members, and whether there is any connection
between this incident and the loss of the Arctic Sea’s
sister ship, the MV Teklivka which capsized off Egypt in
2006. Since Bastrykin is now interrogating all the parties
involved, the answer may prove less elusive than the missing
ship– or its cargo. [back
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