Bloomberg Video: How Drug Smugglers Infiltrated a Global Shipping Giant

Bloomberg is out with a new video today following up on a controversial article published last week on how cocaine-smuggling gangs infiltrated the world’s largest shipping company, MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company.

The story centers on the record-setting cocaine bust on board the MSC Gayane in 2019 at the Port of Philadelphia, during which U.S. authorities seized nearly 18 metric tons of cocaine valued at over $1 billion, and how it “kicked off a fight between the US and the world’s largest shipping carrier over drug trafficking.”

MSC has disputed those allegations, as gCaptain reported earlier this week, saying the article mainly rehashes what’s already been publicly reported on the case.

“Most of the elements in the Bloomberg story have already been publicly reported during the 3 ½ years since the Gayane incident and MSC’s Victim Impact Statement related to the incident is filed in court,” MSC said in its statement.

“MSC strongly objects to Bloomberg’s headline claim that the subversion of a small number of seafarers from Montenegro, in what remain very specific circumstances, amounts to the ‘company’ being ‘infiltrated’ by a drugs cartel,” the statement adds. You can read MSC full statement here.

Bloomberg introduces the video by saying: “On this episode of Bloomberg Storylines, we explain how a little-known drug cartel operating out of the Balkans has, according to US prosecutors, infiltrated crews for Mediterranean Shipping Co., using its massive container ships to send illicit drugs all over the globe.

We’ll let you be the judge. Here’s Bloomberg’s video: