Shipping firm suspends activities in Brazil after being 'used' by Kinahan-linked super-cartel

The Mediterranean Shipping Company has suspended some of its activities in Brazil where criminal gangs have targeted shipping containers bound for European ports.

The firm told Brazilian media and trade outlets "criminal actions have victimised the company, customers and partners and are threatening its operations."

One of their ships the MSC Gayane had been used in 2019 in a plot to ship a massive 20 tons of cocaine to European which has been linked to the Kinahan super cartel.

The firm had to pay a multi-million dollar surety bond to have the ship released a month after it was seized by the US authorities.

Seven members of the crew have since been convicted for their roles in the plot which involved speedboats deliver bales of cocaine the ship off the coast of Peru.

The €1.5 billion worth of cocaine is the largest in the history of the US Customs and Border Protection agency and accounted for 70 percent rise in cocaine seizures in the country that year.

The latest move by the shipping company highlights the cocaine gangs focus on getting more cocaine into Europe.

Authorities in Belgium and the Netherlands have been battling the narco-gangs operations in infiltration ports and shipping companies.

This year harsh new laws were introduced in The Netherlands which allows for any unauthorised person found in a port area to be jailed for up to two years.

Police officers, customs officials and port workers have all been identified as accepting bribes to allow shipments get through the ports.

Insight Crime recently reported how Brazil’s port of Santos has become the world’s biggest cocaine hub where on 27 December three separate shipments destined for Spain, France and Ghana were intercepted.

Daniel Kinahan has previously been linked to drugs shipments from south America and as well as assets based in Brazil.

The Drugs Enforcement Agency said nationwide cocaine seizures in 2019 surged 70% compared to 2018, to 45,241 kilos from 26,585 kilos as a result of the seizure.

“The increase is primarily attributed to the record seizure of 17,928 kilograms from cargo containers on the MSC Gayane in Philadelphia destined for Antwerp, Belgium.”

The DEA previously compiled a dossier on the European gangs co-operating to organise super-sized cocaine shipments to Europe.

This included many of Daniel Kinahan’s wedding guests such as Dutch criminal currently on trial Ridouan Taghi, and recently convicted Ricardo Riquelme Vega, aka El Rico.

Wedding guests, Italian Camorra boss Raffaele Imperiale and Edin Gacanin, a senior member of the Montenegrin Tito and Dino Cartel, were also named by the DEA as part of the same conglomerate.