U.S. Charges Liberian Ship Management Company, Shipowner, and Three Engineering Officers with Environmental Crimes
A federal grand jury in Charleston, South Carolina has returned an indictment charging Aegean Shipping Management S.A. and Aegeansun Gamma Inc. with obstruction of an company continuing, conspiracy and failing to maintain correct air pollution management data, the Justice Department has introduced. Three engineering officers had been charged with associated offenses.
The costs stem from the 2015 falsification of data and obstruction designed to cowl up overboard discharges of oily mixtures and equipment house bilge water from the Liberian-flagged chemical tanker, MT Green Sky. The vessel’s administration firm, Aegean Shipping Management of Liberia and the vessel’s proprietor, Aegeansun Gamma of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, are charged with failing to keep up an correct oil file e-book as required by the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), a U.S. legislation implementing the MARPOL conference. The corporations had been additionally charged with falsification of data, obstruction and conspiracy.
The people, Panagiotis Koutoukakis and Herbert Julian, each former Chief Engineers of the Green Sky, and Nikolaos Bounovas, the previous Second Engineer onboard the vessel, had been charged with aiding and abetting the failure to keep up an correct oil file e-book, falsification of federal data and conspiracy. Julian is dealing with an extra obstruction cost.
The investigation into criminal activity onboard the vessel started in late August 2015 when the vessel arrived within the Port of North Charleston, South Carolina and members of the engine room employees advised the U.S. Coast Guard that they’d been ordered to bypass the ship’s oil water separator on a number of events. In a associated case, on Feb. 18, the previous captain of the Green Sky, Genaro Anciano, pleaded responsible to 1 rely of obstruction for knowingly making false and deceptive oral and written statements in an effort to impede the Coast Guard’s investigation of the bypass allegations.
The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned in Charleston on July 26.
