US jury indicts Greeks over dumping waste
CHARLOTTE AMALIE, US Virgin Islands (AP) – A Greek shipping company that manages a fleet of commercial tankers has been indicted by a US Virgin Islands grand jury for illegally dumping waste oil in international waters and falsifying pollution logs. Ionia Management SA, based in Piraeus, Greece, allegedly presented falsified oil record books to the US Coast Guard in St Croix during port calls between August 2006 and March 2007, according to a statement Friday from the Caribbean territory’s US District Attorney. The indictment also charges Edgardo Mercurio, a Filipino second engineer aboard one of the company’s oil tankers, with obstruction of justice for failure to accurately account for the disposal of sludge and bilge from a Bahamian-registered vessel. The indictment did not say exactly when or where the alleged dumping took place.
