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Missing Tugboat 'Solo Creed' Resurfaces in Angola After $23m Oil Spill in Tobago (bellingcat)
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/05/26/missing-tugboat-solo-creed-resurfaces-in-angola-after-23m-oil-spill-in-tobago/Missing Tugboat 'Solo Creed' Resurfaces in Angola After $23m Oil Spill in Tobago
May 26, 2024
On February 7, 2024, an unidentified oil tanker washed up on the shores of the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, spilling oil across beaches, coral reefs and mangroves. Bellingcat previously identified the tanker as the barge “Gulfstream,” which was pulled by a tugboat named Solo Creed. We tracked its voyage via satellite imagery as it sailed from Panama to a location offshore from a Petrolas de Venezuela (PDVSA) port in northern Venezuela where it went “dark” for several days by turning off its Automated Identification System (AIS) location transponder.
Bellingcat and the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian used open sources and maritime records to show that the Solo Creed was owned by individuals connected to Melaj Offshore Corporation, a Panamanian company with a history of transporting Venezuelan oil. However, when contacted by Bellingcat and the T&T Guardian, Augustine Jackson, an officer at Melaj, claimed that the tug had been sold in August 2023 to a man named Abraham Olalekan and was en route to Nigeria.
Nothing has been heard of the vessel in the months since.
But information released by the Angolan Navy on May 11, 2024, reported that the Solo Creed was seized off the coast of the African nation’s capital city, Luanda, for unauthorised breach of its claimed offshore oil security perimeter. While the Solo Creed has not turned on its AIS location broadcast since it went dark on February 5, Bellingcat and the T&T Guardian were able to verify the current location of the Solo Creed using satellite imagery.
[...]
May 26, 2024
On February 7, 2024, an unidentified oil tanker washed up on the shores of the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, spilling oil across beaches, coral reefs and mangroves. Bellingcat previously identified the tanker as the barge “Gulfstream,” which was pulled by a tugboat named Solo Creed. We tracked its voyage via satellite imagery as it sailed from Panama to a location offshore from a Petrolas de Venezuela (PDVSA) port in northern Venezuela where it went “dark” for several days by turning off its Automated Identification System (AIS) location transponder.
Bellingcat and the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian used open sources and maritime records to show that the Solo Creed was owned by individuals connected to Melaj Offshore Corporation, a Panamanian company with a history of transporting Venezuelan oil. However, when contacted by Bellingcat and the T&T Guardian, Augustine Jackson, an officer at Melaj, claimed that the tug had been sold in August 2023 to a man named Abraham Olalekan and was en route to Nigeria.
Nothing has been heard of the vessel in the months since.
But information released by the Angolan Navy on May 11, 2024, reported that the Solo Creed was seized off the coast of the African nation’s capital city, Luanda, for unauthorised breach of its claimed offshore oil security perimeter. While the Solo Creed has not turned on its AIS location broadcast since it went dark on February 5, Bellingcat and the T&T Guardian were able to verify the current location of the Solo Creed using satellite imagery.
[...]