A Last Resort for Stolen Ships
canada goose jacket uk MIRAGONE, Haiti In Greece, Max Hardberger posed as an interested buyer, in Haiti as a port official, haydar-furniture in Trinidad, a shipper. He has plied guards with booze and distracted them with prostitutes; spooked port police officers with witch doctors and duped night watchmen into leaving their posts. His goal: to get on board a vessel he is trying to retrieve and race toward the 12 mile line where the high seas begin and local jurisdiction ends. canada goose jacket uk
canada goose parka outlet uk Mr. Hardberger is among a handful of maritime “repo men” who handle the toughest of grab and dash jobs in foreign harbors, usually on behalf of banks, insurers or shipowners. A last resort solution to a common predicament, he is called when a vessel has been stolen, its operators have defaulted on their mortgage or Canada Goose Jackets a ship has been fraudulently detained by local officials. canada goose parka outlet uk
canada goose outlet location Tens of thousands of boats or ships are stolen around the world each year, and many become part of a global “phantom fleet” involved in a broad range of crimes. Phantom vessels are frequently used in Southeast Asia for human trafficking, piracy and illegal fishing, in the Caribbean for smuggling guns and drugs, and in the Middle East and North Africa to transport fighters or circumvent arms or oil embargoes, according to Rear Adm. Christopher Parry, a maritime security expert formerly with Britain’s Royal Navy. canada goose outlet location
canada goose outlet website legit Usually the vessels are not recovered because they canada goose clearance sale are difficult to find on the vast oceans, the search is too expensive and the ships often end up in ports with uncooperative or corrupt officials. canada goose outlet website legit
canada goose stockists uk Charles N. Dragonette, who monitored maritime crime for canada goose uk shop the United States Office of Naval Intelligence until 2012, said that he believes that Mr. Hardberger follows whatever rules exist. But when negotiations fail, waterborne jailbreaks sometimes occur. canada goose stockists uk
canada goose outlet 80 off Charles Meacham, a uk canada goose maritime repo man based in Jacksonville, Fla., recounted how his teams spirited hundreds of boats out of a marina in Mexico in 2009 after they were stolen from Florida by a drug cartel, a move that won him a bounty on his head. Court papers describe a job that Mr. Hardberger handled in 2009, where he retrieved a freighter called the Virgin Express I from the Dominican Republic, boarding it by pretending to be a shipper, then sailing the ship to the Turks and Caicos Islands, where he handed it over to the mortgage holder. canada goose outlet 80 off
canada goose outlet in usa Citing past assignments in Cuba, Egypt, Ghana, Honduras, Trinidad, Venezuela and elsewhere, Mr. Meacham and a half dozen others in the industry said canada goose that they each get on average one Canada Goose Parka or two “extraction” requests per year. John Dalby, chief executive officer of Marine Risk Management, said his firm canada goose clearance is currently working for a consortium of banks to repossess a fleet of more than a dozen freighters from nearly as many ports around the world. “They have to be taken all at once or else several will run,” he said. canada goose outlet in usa
canada goose outlet paypal A review of contracts and court records from some of these extraction jobs and interviews with repo men, insurance investigators and coast guard officers show that lawlessness offshore sometimes extends from canada goose black friday sale corruption onshore. These documents and comments shed light on the array of ploys used to steal, seize, extort and recover ships. They also reveal how maritime repo men and the scheming debtors, dodgy port mechanics, testy guards, disgruntled crews canada goose uk black friday and dishonest Canada Goose Coats On Sale port officials that they are hired to outwit take advantage of the lack of policing and jurisdictional ambiguity of the open ocean. canada goose outlet paypal
buy canada goose uk The public perception of modern piracy usually involves Somalis in fast boats capturing tankers on the high seas. “More often overlooked but just as prevalent is white collar piracy,” Admiral Parry said. Buccaneers in business suits hijack ships in port through opportunistic ruses rather than at sea with surprise shows of force. buy canada goose uk
canada goose outlet online Consumers are affected by the theft and corruption Canada Goose sale because it adds millions of dollars to transport costs and insurance rates, raising sticker prices more than 10 percent, maritime researchers say. canada goose outlet online
canada goose outlet germany “The fact is that in some ports in the world possession isn’t, as the saying goes, nine tenths of the law,” added Mr. Dragonette. “It is the law.” canada goose outlet germany
canada goose outlet miami Ship Raiders and Port PiratesPort scams are as old as shipping itself and seasoned repo men can identify them by name. “Unexpected complications”: a shipyard makes repairs without permission, then sends the owner an astronomical bill, often for more than the value of the ship, hoping to force its forfeiture. “Barratry”: buying off crews, sometimes paying more than a year’s wages to leave a ship’s keys and walk away. “A docking play”: a shipowner defaults on his mortgage, but is in cahoots with a marina, which charges the repossessor hyperinflated docking fees. “I swam out to it one night and took the boat back,” said Steve Salem, a repo man in Sarasota, Fla., recalling one such case in the Abacos, a chain of islands in the Bahamas, in 2012. canada goose outlet miami
canada goose outlet parka Newsletter Sign Up canada goose outlet parka
canada goose outlet england Continue reading the main story canada goose outlet england
canada goose outlet store calgary Mr. Lindsay described a “classic shakedown” case he handled in 2011 in Guinea in West Canada Goose Outlet Africa where a ship was canada goose store being fraudulently detained with a $50 million fine for less than $10,000 in damage to a dock. “They fly you in, you find Canada Goose online the right official, and negotiate him back to Planet Earth,” Mr. Lindsay said. canada goose outlet store calgary
canada goose jacket outlet toronto Stolen boats about 5,000 were taken in the United States in 2014 are often relocated to “unfriendly jurisdictions,” where local governments are sometimes less sympathetic to American owners and more susceptible canada goose coats to bribes, the repo men said. canada goose jacket outlet toronto
canada goose outlet in vancouver Mr. Meacham, the Florida based repo man, said he was once sent to Havana to retrieve a stolen American owned megayacht being used by a hotel there. Chartering the vessel into international waters, he then told the Cuban captain: Come with us to the United States or take a lifeboat back to shore. The captain chose the former. “No evidence, no invoices, no affidavits, canada goose factory sale no appeals process,” said Mr. Lightbown, who has hired Mr. Hardberger several times. “They just need the filing fee that goes to buy canada goose jacket cheap a local Canada Goose Online justice of the peace and something extra under the table.” canada goose outlet in vancouver
canada goose factory outlet vancouver To talk his way on board, Mr. Hardberger said he has a collection of cheap canada goose uk fake uniforms and official sounding business cards, among them are “Port Inspector,” “Marine Surveyor” and “Internal Auditor.” He also carries a glass vial uk canada goose outlet of magnetic powder to sprinkle on the hull to reveal lettering that canada goose online store has been welded off. canada goose factory outlet vancouver
canada goose outlet price Mr. Dalby, from Marine Risk Management, said that rather than taking ships from unfriendly ports, he prefers surreptitiously placing GPS trackers on them while in transit, then calling in canadian goose jacket the police. canada goose outlet price
canada goose outlet michigan “Occasionally the legal system solves the problem,” added Mr. Hardberger, who buy canada goose jacket canceled plans for an extraction job this month after a court in Haiti ordered the release of a freighter called the Amber Express, which had been improperly detained in the Port of canada goose coats on sale St. Marc, Haiti. canada goose outlet michigan
canada goose coats uk All of the repo men said they abide by certain self imposed rules. No violence or weapons better, they said, to hire street youths for lookouts, bar owners for diversions, and prostitutes to talk their way on board to spy. Officials from the Haitian Coast Guard, Interpol, and the bar association in California, where Mr. Hardberger is licensed, said they had no records of complaints, disciplinary actions cheap Canada Goose or arrest warrants for him. canada goose coats uk
canada goose outlet nyc Asked whether he ever pays off public officials, Mr. Meacham replied in much the same way as his colleagues had. “Bribery is illegal,” he said. “Negotiating a fine is not.” canada goose outlet nyc
canada goose outlet store montreal ‘$300, Four Welders, and a Fax Machine’Often, maritime law works in crooks’ favor, said Michael Bono, a lawyer and managing director of Vessel Extractions. Ship sales are more anonymous and final than sales of other types of property, he said. If someone buys a stolen painting at an auction, explained Edward Keane, a maritime lawyer in New York, the rightful owner can later make a claim and in many cases repossess it. But under international maritime law, he said, a vessel sold at a judicial auction has had its “face washed” or “bottom scrubbed” clean of liens and other previous canada goose uk outlet debts, including mortgages canada goose outlet store montreal.