A ship linked to shipowner Panagiotis Laskaridis was found in Venice with 850 kilograms of cocaine on board, according to international media reports. Specifically, according to a report by TradeWindsnews.com Italian authorities discovered cocaine worth 150 million euros on the ship Atlas, which is reportedly owned by Laskaridis Shipping.
This is the shipping company owned by Panagiotis Laskaridis, a member of the well-known shipping family, whose ties to the newspaper «Proto Thema» and the company Zeus & Dione—which belonged to the prime minister’s wife, Mareva Mitsotaki-Grabowski—had been revealed by Documento. Laskaridis had also caused a stir with his statements during a journalistic investigation by the EIC (European Investigative Collaboration) titled «Black Trail,» in which he had spoken disparagingly of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
According to TradeWindsnews.com, which published a photo taken from a helicopter, shows 850 kilograms of the substance in 570 packages that were found on the Atlas, a ship owned by Laskaridis Shipping and flying the Liberian flag. In fact, these packages were found inside ventilation ducts.
#GDF #Venice: 850 kg of narcotics hidden aboard a cargo ship from South America were seized.#NoiconVoi pic.twitter.com/XqeBPV0cko
— Guardia di Finanza (@GDF) April 20, 2023
None of the sailors were arrested, and as the article reports, it departed from Santos, Brazil, on March 23 and arrived in Venice on April 17, where it remained anchored on Friday morning. The ship underwent further inspections yesterday, Thursday, which had begun on Tuesday.
The same report points out that commercial ships are more likely to be «targets» for drug smuggling, but other ships can also be used by cartels without the knowledge of shipowners and crew members.
In fact, last month, Europol announced that at least 200 metric tons of cocaine had been smuggled through the European Union’s two busiest ports by criminal gangs, who «obtained unique container codes from informants.».
A report reveals that this practice has been on the rise since 2018, when the Port of Rotterdam discovered that containers were missing, were found in the wrong places, or had been discarded.
Drug cartels pay hundreds of thousands of euros to other individuals to provide the unique identification details of a container that is assigned as soon as payment for the shipment is made.
This practice is known as «PIN code fraud,» the article concludes.
And the packages that… were floating off the coast of Sicily
According to the Italian newspaper *Il Fatto Quotidiano*, financial police investigators have not ruled out the possibility that Thursday’s discovery of 850 kilograms of cocaine is linked to the incident that occurred off the coast of Sicily last Monday.
At that time, the financial police recovered 2 metric tons of cocaine from the sea, which was floating off the coast of Catania. The “packages” had been packed in such a way as to keep out water, and were tied to buoys so they would be clearly visible from a distance. The Financial Police estimate the value of the seized drugs at 400 million euros.
