Instead of dismantling the ships, just selling them? And consciously accepted environmental dangers? There are serious allegations that the public prosecutor’s office is investigating in several cases of illegal disposal.
The Hamburg public prosecutor’s office is investigating several companies on suspicion of illegally dismantling three old ships. A spokeswoman for the authority announced this on request.
In the course of the proceedings, investigators searched a total of seven objects in Hamburg on Wednesday and “secured written documents and electronic data that are currently being evaluated”. The public prosecutor’s office did not want to disclose which suspects are involved.
It is about the allegation that the entrepreneurs did not have the ships properly scrapped, but sold them – knowing that the buyers are going to take the ships to Pakistan, “where they were driven onto an unsecured beach and scrapped there under environmentally hazardous conditions,” such as the public prosecutor announced. In the shipping industry, this procedure is called “beaching” after the English word for beach.
Previously, «Bild» reported on the searches and named the investment and asset management group ER Capital of the Hamburg merchant and shipowner Erck Rickmers. “A ship from the Erck Rickmers Group that belonged to around 350 investors is affected by these investigations,” said ER Capital. The investors would have sold this ship, which was 19 years old at the time, at the highest bidder in 2017. “The further operation of the ship after the sale was solely the responsibility of the buying company,” it continues. The Erck Rickmers Group is not aware of any violation and is fully cooperating with the investigating authorities.
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
