Ville D’Aquarius, image via Vesseltracker.com
**UPDATE**
The latest word is that after exhaustive searching and x-rays of the containers on board, no stowaways were found by port authorities today in Newark, NJ.
The following is the original article posted this morning:
US Coast Guard inspectors encountered a rather unsettling situation early this morning while conducting a random inspection of the inbound containership Ville D’Aquarius off Sandy Hook, New Jersey.
The boarding team knocked on one of the containers and the container knocked back.
Unable to open the container deep in the ship’s hold, the ship was immediately directed by authorities into port where the container will be offloaded via crane today.
Coast Guard spokesman Charles Rowe told NBCNewYork.com that the container is believed to have been put on the ship in one of two ports in India — either Mundra or Nahva Sheva — before the ship left India on June 7.
With a dire medical situation potentially unfolding, ambulances are currently on hot standby to deliver emergency care to those that may be inside.
Michelle Krupa, a civilian spokeswoman for the Coast Guard New York Command Center, told the Star Ledger, “there’s rumors going around that there’s 20 to 25 Pakistanis, but we do not have that report.”
Updated: November 30, 2023 (Originally published June 27, 2012)
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