Secret cargo aboard missing ship?

www.russiatoday.com...

The “Arctic Sea” ship which disappeared in the Atlantic was carrying a cargo of timber worth nearly $2 mln and, perhaps, a “secret” cargo says Mikhail Voytenko, editor-in-chief of the Russian maritime bulletin Sovfrakht.

“It has been unveiled that the timber belongs to the biggest European paper manufacturer, Stora Enso Oyj,” Voytenko told Interfax.

However, the company maintains that they were not the only ones whose cargo the “Arctic Sea” was carrying. Voytenko stated that a cargo of timber was unlikely to have been the cause for the ship’s disappearance.

“It was either a secret or a counterfeited shipment,” he said.

The company whose cargo the ship was officially carrying also confirmed that something else might have been at stake.

“We are not the only company whose cargo was on board,” a spokesman for Stora Enso Oyj told Interfax.

Alternate sources:

Missing ship hijacking 'completely unusual'

www.independent.co.uk...

Sounds very strange.... what could have happened to this ship, who would steal timber cargo that is difficult to sell? Pirates with english accents posing as police boarding the ship according to Channel 4 news..... and what secret cargo was on this ship, if any???

I suppose in this day and age, people with steal anything if it has a value, which apparently this did.

An interesting case and thread i will be watching.

This ship would be readily apparent on Satellite imagery, and by a number of GPS and ELT transmitters on board. I am afraid the ship has already been ransacked and sunk.

First it was boarded and searched, then released, then disappeared 2 days later? The last known location and the max speed of the ship would make a search very simple! If it was above water, they would have found it very quickly.

My prayers are with the crew, and with the rest of us depending on that 'secret' cargo!

Wonders if the cargo on the ship had something to do with Putin going under the lake recently..just wondering

[edit on 8/11/09 by Ophiuchus 13]

you can bet your arse if i went missing they'd soon find me if i owed some tax or some #.... no way a boat this size can go missing that easily

As a mariner points out in the video, if the ship had sunk, timber would be afloat everywhere. The boarding party it seems took nothing, although they roughed up the crew.

reply to post by smurfy


It depends on how the cargo was secured. In a catastrophic accident the lumber would float free, but if it was a controlled case of flooding the ballasts, the cargo would be securely strapped to a very heavy ship. I don't think it would be floating!

reply to post by getreadyalready
Yes I get your point okay, I was reiterating what the mariner said on the video and he worked on such a boat, however I do think that there would be flotsam to be found, but so far there is no trace of anything, offficially that is. I also recall a recent incident with a ship with all the cargo of timber being washed up for miles along the English coast. The ship in this post lost contact on 28th/30th July, the boarding/unboarding took place on 24th July...so there is a real mystery here.Reading more on the expanded story at the OP's link, the mariner turns out to be a father of one of the missing ship's crewmen.Amazingly or maybe not, he says a ship carrying that amount of timber cannot(sic) sink. It also appears that there is an automatic disaster alarm on this vessel which did not activate. The ship was built in 1991...the same year as the Russian ship I have mentioned that lost it's cargo. That was built in Spain and i'm now looking to see where this boat was built.












[edit on 11-8-2009 by smurfy]

I believe this is part of a insurance scam ether the ship was unloaded to another ship and sunk.

Or the ship has been repainted and renamed and being used someplace else and the cargo sold on the blackmarket.

Originally posted by Ophiuchus 13
Wonders if the cargo on the ship had something to do with Putin going under the lake recently..just wondering

[edit on 8/11/09 by Ophiuchus 13]

Yes ... extremely suspicious (sp?). I think there is a secret war between nations on Earth and different aliens about the possesion of ancient Xenophacts (from the game Ground Control - xenofact = ancient non-human artifact).

Didn't Webbot predict people to disappear??

Russia today say's maybe aliens abducted them, I'm sure they're joking though.

Maybe aliens are relocating us one ship at a time....

1.2 million euros worth of cargo just dont vanish along with a boat thats been attacked by "pirates" who where looking for contraband,

but what suprices me the most is that after they had destroyed the communication equipment and left (the pirates) the ship was granted leave.

and its gone......

neglect seams to be the top theme of the millenia among people.

From Cargolaw Website:

4,706-dwt Malta-flagged dry cargo M/V Arctic Sea (IMO 8912792, built 1991), Finland to Algeria, reported hijacked and missing. Last known position July 29 off Portugal. The vessel is with a crew of 15 Russians. The attack evidently occurred July 24. [From our Moscow Correspondent Mike Voitenko, 9-8-09]

I also found out that all certificates are valid til 2011-08-21 and April 2014. The Class Society Russian Maritime Register of Shipping issued on 2009-07-16 the Cargo Ship Safety Equipment Certificate, valid until 2011-08-21.

A Port State Control Info issued 2009-07-17 in Kaliningrad found 3 deficiencies, one related to ISM, one operational and one for ship's certificate & documentation; but no detention was necessary.

That's what I could find.

But, hijacked off Portugal is not Somalia or Malaysia. Strange it is.

BBC news says that ship may be hijacked and taken to western africa and repainted and sold on to somebody else.

Russian navy joins hunt for ship

Russia's navy has been deployed to find a ship reportedly hijacked three weeks ago in the Baltic Sea.
Up to five vessels - reported to include nuclear submarines - will be involved in the search for the Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea, the navy confirmed.

"All Russian navy ships in the Atlantic have been sent to join the search for the Arctic Sea," Russia's naval commander, Adm Vladimir Vysotsky, was quoted as saying by Moscow's Itar-Tass news agency.

"All the information-intelligence systems of our armed forces, including the space-borne systems, the system of identification of sea vessels and others, have been calibrated to look for the missing ship," he said.
Operations will be centred on the patrol ship Ladny, a guided missile frigate which is part of Russia's Black Sea fleet.
UK authorities, which made contact with the Arctic Sea before it entered the busy shipping waters of the English channel, described the situation as "bizarre".

Hmmm for 15 sailors and timber???

What's the hell's going on???

[edit on 12-8-2009 by john124]

Well I found this today, I don't think it was just timber on board.

storyy