Two ship engineers indicted for illegal oil discharges

A federal grand jury in Greenville, N.C. on Friday returned a nine-count indictment charging two ship engineers employed by Oceanfleet Shipping Ltd. with crimes related to the illegal discharging oily waste directly into the sea.    A federal grand jury in Greenville, N.C. on Friday returned a nine-count indictment charging two ship engineers employed by Oceanfleet Shipping Ltd. with crimes related to illegal discharging oily waste directly into the sea, the Justice Department said.
   Oceanfleet Shipping is a Greek shipping company that operates the cargo vessel Ocean Hope. The vessel’s chief engineer, Rustico Yabut Ignacio, and the second engineer, Cassius Flores Samson, both of the Philippines, were indicted.
   According to the Justice Department, in 2015 Samson bypassed pollution prevention equipment with an unauthorized hose connection, or “magic pipe,” to discharge oil sludge generated by the Ocean Hope directly into the sea. Samson also ordered crewmen on numerous other occasions to pump oily mixtures from the vessel’s bilges into the sea using the ship’s general service pump rather than processing these mixtures through the vessel’s pollution prevention equipment.
   To hide the illegal discharges from the Coast Guard, Ignacio and Samson allegedly maintained a fictitious oil record book, a violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships and other federal laws. The Coast Guard discovered the wrongdoing during an inspection of the vessel’s records at Wilmington, N.C.
   The two engineers were also charged with witness tampering by ordering subordinate crewmen to “mislead and lie” to the Coast Guard. Samson was also charged with making false statements and obstruction of justice for lying to Coast Guard inspectors about the discharges, the Justice Department said.