Seven Takeaways From Businessweek’s Cocaine-Smuggling Cover Story
US and European authorities are investigating how vessels operated by the world’s biggest shipping company, MSC, were infiltrated by Balkan gangs.
Officials at the Port of Philadelphia gather on the decks of the MSC Gayane after seizing more than $1 billion worth of cocaine in June 2019.
Photographer: Matt Rourke/AP Photo
The Mediterranean Shipping Co., the largest shipping company in the world, is a key engine of global trade. Law enforcement officials say some of its ships are also hotbeds of drug trafficking. In recent years, officials found that multiple MSC vessels were carrying drugs, and they seized a $100 million ship, the Gayane, after finding $1 billion worth of cocaine onboard.
The process of getting nearly 20 tons of drugs onto a container ship is an extraordinary feat of both criminal coercion and logistics. The latest Bloomberg Businessweek cover story, constructed from more than 100 interviews, tells the story of how Balkan gangs managed to infiltrate MSC ships’ crews over more than a decade, and how they used speedboats, bribery and threats to get their cargo onboard.