Tag Archives: smugglers
Smugglers dumped millions in drugs off Maine’s coast. Struggling fishermen saw a jackpot.
One cold night in April 1983, narcotics officers arrived at the Northeast Harbor Marina on Mount Desert Island. The drug-sniffing dog with them strained at the end of a leash. They’d received an anonymous tip that some of the scallop boats in the area had been carrying illegal drugs along with their catches. They waited in the shadows, preparing to pounce on the evidence that would confirm the rumors. Out on the dark waters, a 42-foot scallop dragger named F/V Joshua’s Delight glided toward the harbor. One of the fishermen aboard that night was my father, Frank Ryan, then 34. That night, my father hoped his luck was changing. But he wasn’t thinking about scallops. While dredging the ocean floor that afternoon, their nets had caught something else. When they hauled them up, among thousands of scallops were chunks of a sticky, leathery substance shaped like the sole of a shoe. Dense and potent, you could smell it the instant it came on deck: hashish. >click to read< 11:11
Record NSW Coke Bust? Police find tonne of suspected cocaine on a commercial fishing boat
An unusual-looking route bought the Coralynne to the attention of authorities and, as investigators boarded the fishing vessel, it didn’t take long to confirm their suspicions — it was allegedly carrying more than a tonne of what presumptive testing suggests is cocaine. As police boarded the boat, a fire broke out in the engine room. It was extinguished before officers found what they allege was more than a tonne of drugs that were sitting inside the boat. There was no attempt made to conceal the cocaine, >photos, click to read< 08:33
Inside the secret, million-dollar world of baby eel trafficking
In the parking lot of an Irving gas station in Aulac, N.B., not far from the Nova Scotia border, Curtis Kiley popped the trunk of a Toyota Corolla. Inside was a white bucket containing what looked like a giant hairball, the type that might be pulled from a bathtub drain. Except it was alive — a wriggling, slithering mess. This was just an initial sample Kiley had brought to show a prospective black-market buyer, a woman he knew only through text message as “Danielle.” He was ultimately hoping to unload up to 300 kilograms of the tiny creatures, a huge haul worth $1.3 million on the open market, but one he was offering at a steep discount. Moments later, Kiley’s world turned from dollar signs to handcuffs. >click to read<10:40
Smuggled North Korea Clams Show China’s Struggle to Stop Kim
In the fishing grounds where the Yalu River opens up to the Yellow Sea, Chinese and North Korean trawlers intermingle as they search for crabs, conch and yellow clams. Drifting among them are Chinese boats called “mother ships” that act as floating middlemen, offering dollars, renminbi and even goods like cigarettes for the latest catch, according to traders who have been aboard the vessels. One of them, who called himself Mr. Du, said the seafood is then taken ashore to China and sold in wholesale markets, where it all gets mixed together. The practice is just one form of smuggling along China’s 1,350-kilometer (840-mile) border with North Korea, roughly the distance from Paris to Rome. Locals use boats, cars, trucks and several rail lines to carry everything from diesel fuel to silkworms to cell phones back and forth across the Yalu. click here to read the story 12:32
