The Director-General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Mr. Richard Anamoo, says a Greek Oil vessel, MT Fair Artemis, hijacked by pirates off Ghana’s waters in June this year has finally berthed at the Takoradi Port to offload oil.
He said the pirates siphoned 3,500 metric tonnes of crude oil from the vessel into another vessel and voyaged to Benin for sale but luck run out for them and were arrested by the security agencies in that country.
Mr. Anamoo made the disclosure at the Sod-Cutting ceremony for Subsea 7 fabrication facility at the Takoradi Port on Friday.
The Director-General of GPHA led a delegation including the Western Regional Minister, Mr. Paul Evans Aidoo and his deputy, Mr. Alfred Ekow Gyan, the Director of Takoradi Port, Captain James Owusu Koranteng and some port officials to visit the recovered vessel, which was anchored at the breakwaters.
MT Fair Artemis was confirmed missing by Noel Choong, the head of IMB’s Piracy Reporting Centre based in Kuala Lumpur in June this year, after the master of the ship called the Tema Port to announce the hijacking of the vessel by pirates.
The territorial waters of Ghana have been patrolled by the country’s navy with only one piracy incident being recorded last year.
According to IMB, 19 per cent of the pirate attacks for 2013 totalling 51 were in West Africa, with nearly 60 per cent of them being conducted by Nigerian pirates.
MT Fair Artemis is managed by Fairdeal Group S.A, which was built in 2009 in Greece and registered in Liberia.
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