Who had the chemicals that blew Beirut? No one will say

MOSCOW / DUBAI / LONDON (Reuters) – In the long-running story of a highly explosive cache of highly explosive ammonium nitrate on the waterfront of Beirut, one thing is clear – no one has ever come forward publicly to demand it.

There are many unanswered questions surrounding last week’s huge, deadly explosion in the Lebanese capital, but ownership should be among the easiest to resolve.

Clear identification of property, especially of a cargo as dangerous as that carried by the Moldovan flag Rhosus when it sailed in Beirut seven years ago, is fundamental to shipping, the key to insuring and resolving disputes that often arise.

But Reuters interviews and trawls for documents in 10 countries in search of the original ownership of this 2,750-tonne concession reveal instead a complicated story of missing documentation, secrecy and a web of small, obscure companies spanning the globe.

‘Goods were transported from one country to another, and they ended up in a third country with no one owning the goods. Why are they stuck here? Said Ghassan Hasbani, a former Lebanese deputy prime minister and opposition figure.

Those linked to the shipment and interviewed by Reuters all denied knowledge of the original owner of the cargo or refused to answer the question. Those who said they did not know included the captain of the ship, the Georgian manure maker who produced the cargo and the African company that ordered it, but said it never paid for it.

The official version of the final journey of the Rhos shows his journey as a series of unfortunate events.

Transport records show the ship loaded with ammonium nitrate in Georgia in September 2013 and was intended to deliver it to an explosives maker in Mozambique. But before leaving the Mediterranean, the captain and two crew members say they were forced by the Russian businessman they considered the de facto owner of the ship, Igor Grechushkin, to make an unplanned stop in Beirut and to take extra cargo.

The Rhosus arrived in Beirut in November, but never left, and was embroiled in a legal dispute over unpaid port costs and ship defects. Creditors accused the legal owner of the ship, listed as a company in Panama, of leaving the ship and the cargo was later discharged and placed in a dockhouse, according to official accounts.

The law firm Beirut, which trades for creditors, Baroudi & Associates, did not respond to requests to identify the original legal owner of the cargo. Reuters could not contact Grechushkin.

The empty ship eventually sank where it landed in 2018, according to Lebanese customs.

The definitive movements of the Rhosus are under fresh control after the ammonium nitrate in the warehouse caught fire and exploded last week, killing at least 158 ​​people, leaving thousands injured and leaving 250,000 people homeless.

Among the unanswered questions: who paid for the ammonium nitrate and did they ever seek to recover the charge when the Rhosus was shot? And if not, why not?

The cargo, packaged in large white bags, was worth around $ 700,000 in prizes in 2013, according to a sector source.

REVIEWED

Reuters polls have raised several red flags.

Under international maritime conventions and some domestic laws, commercial ships must have insurance to cover events such as environmental damage, loss of life or injury caused by a sinking, spill or collision. However, the Rhosus was not insured, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The ship’s Russian captain, Boris Prokoshev, said by phone from his home in Sochi, Russia, that he had seen an insurance certificate but could not be held responsible for its authenticity.

Reuters could not obtain any documents from the ship.

The Mozambican company that ordered the ammonium nitrate, Fábrica de Explosivos Moçambique (FEM), was not the cargo owner at the time, as it had agreed to pay only on delivery, according to its spokesman Antonio Cunha Vaz.

The producer was Georgian fertilizer maker Rustavi Azot LLC, which has since been disbanded. The owner at the time, businessman Roman Pipia, told Reuters he had lost control of the Rustavi ammonium nitrate plant in 2016. British court documents show the company was forced by a creditor to auction off its assets that year.

The factory is now managed by another company, JSC Rustavi Azot, who also said it could not shed any light on the cargo owner, according to the current first deputy director, Levan Burdiladze.

FEM said it had ordered the shipment through a trading company, Savaro Ltd, which has registered companies in London and Ukraine, but whose website is now offline.

A visit to the aforementioned London address of Savaro Ltd on Monday found a Victorian terrace house, with a locked and sloping door, close to the fashionable bars of Shoreditch. No one responded to buttons on the door.

Reuters contacted UK-registered Savaro Ltd director Greta Bieliene, a Lithuanian based in Cyprus. They refused to answer questions.

A source familiar with the inner workings of Savaro’s trading company said the fertilizer was sold from ex-Soviet Union states to clients in Africa.

Business-based businessman Vladimir Verbonol is named as director of Savaro in Ukraine, according to Ukrainian business database You Control. Reuters could not contact Verbonol for comment.

THE RUSSIAN

As sadness and anger over the explosion turn into civil unrest in Beirut, there are signs that the Lebanese government’s promised investigation has already turned its attention to Rhosus and Grechushkin, the man who considered the crew its owner. .

A security source said Grechushkin was questioned about his charge last Thursday at his home in Cyprus. A Cypriot police spokesman said an individual he did not name was questioned at the request of Interpol Beirut.

The Rhosus arrived in Beirut in November 2013 with a leak and in generally poor condition, said Captain Prokoshev. It was already having problems.

In July 2013, four months before docking in Beirut, the ship was detained for 13 days by port authorities in Seville, Spain, after several deficiencies, including faulty doors, corrosion on the deck area and lack of auxiliary techniques were found, according to shipping data. It resumed sailing after inspection company Maritime Lloyd issued a certificate for building safety for shipping, which would have involved a survey of the ship, the data showed.

Teimuraz Kavtaradze, an inspector at Maritime Lloyd-based Georgia, which does not run among the most prominent and widely used inspection companies, said he could not confirm whether the company had not provided inspection documents to port officials in Seville. He said he worked for Maritime Lloyd in 2013, but that other staff and management have since changed.

Port officials from Seville were not immediately available for comment. The Paris MoU, a body of 27 maritime states under whose authority the detention was carried out, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Moldova, where the Rhosus is registered, lists the owner of the ship as Panama-based Briarwood Corp, a certificate of ownership seen by Reuters shows. Reuters could not immediately identify Briarwood Corp as a Panamanian registered company. Panama’s maritime authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The ship’s charter, Teto Shipping Ltd, is based in the Marshall Islands and was disbanded in 2014, according to International Registries, which says it provides shipping registration services to the Marshall Islands.

The captain gave Reuters an email address they used for Teto Shipping, but requests for comment at the same address went unanswered. The captain said he considered Grechushkin and Teto to be the same entity.