A ransom demand has been received for the return of a Russian-manned freighter that went missing last month in the Atlantic, Finnish investigators said Saturday.
It was not immediately clear whether the ransom demand was legitimate, and the whereabouts of the vessel Arctic Sea, its 15 crew members and its $1.8 million cargo of timber remain a mystery.
Crew members had said they were attacked in Swedish waters four days before the ship disappeared July 28, but there has been no confirmation that the ship was actually seized.
"A ransom demand has been made. ... Let's say it's a largish amount of money," Markku Ranta-Aho, of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation, told national YLE radio. He said the demand was addressed to the Finland-based company that owns the Arctic Sea, but he would not give details or say where the ship might be located for fear of endangering the crew.
The French Navy said Saturday the ship was likely near Cape Verde. Widespread reports on Friday also had placed the ship near the island nation off West Africa.
Cape Verde authorities said they had no new information Saturday, though Russia's ambassador to the country, Alexander Karpushin, said there was no confirmation the ship had been found.
Russian maritime Web site Sovfrakht said the ship's tracking system had sent signals Saturday from the Bay of Biscay, about 2,000 miles north of Cape Verde. It cautioned, however, that the Arctic Sea's Automatic Identification System equipment may not be on the ship itself anymore. The signals disappeared after about an hour, it said.
The French Navy rejected the Web site's claim. Spokesman Capt. Jerome Baroe said the signals had come from Russian warships moving from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea.
The Arctic Sea had set out from Finland on July 23 and was due in an Algerian port Aug. 4. It vanished July 28 after passing through the English Channel.
Efforts to pinpoint its location have been difficult in the vast Atlantic and with no communication from the ship's 15-member Russian crew.
Crew members had reported the ship was attacked July 24 in the Baltic Sea off the Swedish island of Oland. They said a dozen masked men boarded the ship, tied them up, beat them, questioned them about drug trafficking and searched the freighter before leaving.
Such an attack would have been unusual in European waters, and raised questions because it was not reported until the freighter had passed through Britain's busy shipping lanes. There have been fears that some of the attackers might still be aboard, or that the ship came under attack a second time.
Speculation on what might have happened has ranged from suspicions that the ship was carrying secret cargo - possibly narcotics - to theories about a commercial dispute. Security experts have been wary of attributing its disappearance to bandits, noting that piracy is almost unheard of in European waters.
Money, especially big money has the trait of creating adepts. The world should realize that sometimes it's better to be right than politically correct.
The SEALS snipers did a great job hopefully for the world to emulate.
No comments:
Post a Comment