A Ghost Ship of Heroin

eGreece has been shocked after the discovery of the largest quantity of heroin that has ever been recorded on a European or international level, after police dismantled an active drug circuit. Now that new evidence has come to light, Greek Shipping Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis noted that there are more people who will be arrested in the case. “We have touched one of the biggest heroin circuits across the continent. The Greek Coast Guard provided authorities with information, while cooperating with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The NHIS was not involved,” said Varvitsiotis, predicting that: “We’ll find other people involved in the circuit, in Greece as well as abroad.” The Noor One, the ship that was used for the transportation of the heroin, has no recorded information of its routes since 2012. It appears to be a ghost ship Noor One is a tanker-ship, built in 1963, but it was not always called Noor One. Until 1987 it was AKORI, Then it was renamed KORI in 1990. The owner changed the name again to ENVI II and it stayed like that until December 2003. Then it was named KYTHNOS until July 2012. Then it started travelling under the name NOOR ONE. The huge quantity of drugs had been hidden in the water tanks in the aft part of the ship where no one, not even trained dogs could have spotted them. Giorgos Antonatos, a Greek specialist who works with the Coast Guard, said after checking NOOR ONE, that the ship carried a total of two tons and one hundred thirty-six kilos of heroin from Oman to Greece: “A trained eye can distinguish many suspicious signs at first sight, especially regarding the potential use of the ship for criminal purposes. It is a small, old ship, which has changed many names and had many different uses  in the past. It belongs to an unknown shipping company and has a flag that is blacklisted by the IMO (International Maritime Organization).” The expert pointed out that on Tuesday morning the Greek Coast Guard is scheduled to vent the 18 tons of smuggled oil, to determine if the watertight tanks had been used as caches for transporting heroin. Today, June 23, authorities searched the ship inch by inch, along with the arrested captain and commander who know their way around the ship. Men of the Greek police and coast guards have taken the ship’s maps in order to determine its latest routes.

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