Greek shipping company indicted for pollution

A federal grand jury in Charleston, S.C. indicted Aegean Shipping Management S.A. and Aegeansun Gamma Inc. for conspiracy to hide illicit ship pollution.    The U.S. Justice Department on Friday said a federal grand jury in Charleston, S.C. indicted Aegean Shipping Management S.A. and Aegeansun Gamma Inc. for conspiracy to hide illicit ship pollution activity.
   Three engineering officers from the companies were also charted with related offenses.
   The Justice Department said the charges followed the 2015 falsification of records and cover up of overboard discharges of oily bilge water from the Liberian-flagged chemical tanker, Green Sky.
   The vessel’s management company, Aegean Shipping Management of Liberia, and the vessel’s owner, Aegeansun Gamma of the Marshall Islands, are charged with failing to maintain an accurate oil record book as required by the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, a U.S. law which implements the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, or MARPOL.
   In addition, the companies were charged with falsification of records, obstruction and conspiracy.
   The individuals, Panagiotis Koutoukakis and Herbert Julian, both former chief engineers of the Green Sky, and Nikolaos Bounovas, the former second engineer of the vessel, were charged with aiding and abetting the failure to maintain an accurate oil record book, falsification of federal records and conspiracy. Julian is facing an additional obstruction charge, the Justice Department said.
   The Coast Guard launched its investigation in late August 2015 after the Green Sky arrived in the Port of North Charleston. Engineering room workers alerted the Coast Guard to the wrongdoing.
   The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned in Charleston on July 26.