Federal agents on Saturday boarded a vessel operated by the same company as a cargo ship that caused the deadly Baltimore bridge collapse, the FBI confirmed.
In statements, representatives of the FBI and the US Attorney in Maryland confirmed that authorities boarded the Maersk Saltoro. The vessel is managed by Synergy Marine Group.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Division of Criminal Investigation, and the Coast Guard Investigative Services are present on the Maersk Saltoro, conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity,” said statements from both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. USA.
Authorities did not provide further details. The Washington Post first reported the federal authorities who boarded the ship.
The raid comes several months after investigators conducted a similar search of the Dali, the freighter that ran aground on the bridge.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the US Department of Justice alleged that Dali owner Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and director Synergy Marine, both from Singapore, recklessly cut corners and ignored known electrical problems on the vessel, which lost power several times before it crashed. a support column on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.
The Justice Department said the massive ship’s mechanical and electrical systems had been “jury-rigged” and improperly maintained, culminating in power outages and a series of other failures that left its pilots and crew helpless in the face of impending doom. The ship was leaving Baltimore for Sri Lanka when its rudder failed due to a loss of power.
Six members of a road construction crew were killed when the bridge collapsed into the water. The collapse also blocked commercial shipping through the Port of Baltimore for months before the canal fully reopened in June.
The Justice Department is seeking to recover more than $100 million the government spent to clean up underwater debris and reopen the city’s port.
The companies filed a court action days after the collapse to do so limit their legal liability in what could become the most expensive maritime casualty case in history. Justice Department officials have said there is no legal support for that liability offer and vowed to vigorously challenge it.
In its lawsuit, which also seeks punitive damages, the Justice Department argued that ship owners and operators should be “deterred from engaging in such reckless and highly harmful conduct.”
That includes the Grace Ocean and Synergy themselves because the Dali has a “sister ship,” authorities wrote in the claim.
The two companies “should be disbarred for continuing to operate their vessels, including a sister vessel to the Daly, in US waters and to profit financially from these activities,” the lawsuit states.
Darrell Wilson, a spokesman for Grace Ocean, confirmed that the FBI and Coast Guard boarded the Maersk Saltoro in the Port of Baltimore on Saturday morning. Wilson has previously said the owner and manager “look forward to our day in court to set the record straight.”
Like the Dali, the Singapore-flagged Saltoro was manufactured by Hyundai in 2015.
According to the Justice Department’s lawsuit, major issues with the Dali’s electrical system may have been caused by excessive vibration on the ship that could loosen cables and damage connections. A previous captain of the vessel had reported “severe vibrations” in delivery notes in May 2023, saying he had made similar reports to Synergy in the past, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit noted cracked equipment in the engine room and pieces of cargo that had come loose. The ship’s electrical equipment was in such poor condition that an independent agency halted further electrical testing due to safety concerns, according to the lawsuit.
The ship had also suffered power outages while still docked in Baltimore. Those blackouts are considered “reportable marine casualties” that must be reported to the U.S. Coast Guard, which authorities say never happened.
The Dali, which had been stuck in the debris of the collapse for months before he could extracted and refloated, departed from Norfolk, Virginiaon Thursday afternoon she is traveling to China on her first international trip since the March 26 disaster.
Justice Department officials declined to answer questions Wednesday about whether a criminal investigation into the bridge collapse remains ongoing. FBI agents boarded Daly in April.
