Belgian port officials seized 2.4 tonnes of cocaine aboard the MSC Lorena which was embroiled in a bomb hoax scare last month.
Maritime Executive reports that the drugs were discovered on the Panamax container ship MSC Lorena, which was sailing to the Port of Antwerp on the night of December 22 when the Belgian police received a phone call warning that there was a bomb on the ship. The bomb hoax caller claimed that the ship would explode shortly after docking at the port.
The vessel reversed its course and sailed to anchorage at Vlissingen with her crew aboard, while the police investigated for a week before clearing the vessel of the bomb threat. Police arrested two men in their early twenties in connection with the hoax threat.
"The ship had to be anchored for a week, so the cargo could not be unloaded. In addition, one must realise that, for example, just lending a telephone to express a threat can have enormous consequences," Dutch police official Gert Wibbelink said. However, after the vessel was released and sailed to Antwerp for cargo operations, port officials discovered 2 444 kilos of cocaine hidden in a container of cocoa. The vessel sailed for Togo on January 4.
