An Indian court has ordered the sale of a detained Vietnamese bulker months after 22kg of cocaine was found on board.
The Panama-flagged handysize Debi owned by Vietnam’s Asia Pacific Shipping has been anchored at the Paradip port since the drug was discovered last year, but its arrest took place over unpaid docking fees.
Six months back, Justice V Narasingh of Orissa High Court ordered the 2012-built ship to be arrested as part of an admiralty suit launched by Paradip International Cargo Terminal (PITC) to recover port dues of nearly $1m.
Despite the owner’s argument that the ship was solely accountable for payments incurred previous to its detention, PITC filed for the judicial sale of the Devi earlier this month, claiming that more berthing costs were being incurred while the ship deteriorated and its value was decreasing day by day.
The Orissa High Court ruled in favour of PITC and ordered that the Debi be sold once the court received a surveyor’s report and an assessment of the vessel’s value by September 21. The ship is currently estimated at about $17.5m by online pricing platform VesselsValue.
India’s customs officials had seized the cocaine with a street value of $26 from the ship in December last year. The vessel arrived from Gresik port, Indonesia, in ballast and was scheduled to leave for Denmark with steel plates.