Two ex-employees paint picture of sleaze, molestation and drug abuse on Costa vessels.

As if things weren’t bad enough for Costa Cruises, the Costa Concordia investigations now underway have seen accusations of sleaze and drug abuse made against senior officers on Costa vessels- including Captain Schettino of the Concordia- that go back at least two years. At least two ex employees of Costa have told prosecutors in Italy that Captain Francesco Schettino and other senior officers took drugs and molested female staff members.

 A nurse- identified only as Valentina B, has accused Captain Schettino of being a big part of the racket, claiming that he regularly 'used women as goods to be bartered with.’ Valentina says she saw Schettino’s behaviour first hand on another liner, the Atlantica, when she sailed with him in January-February 2010.

'Do not tell me it’s my word against them (sic) - I saw directly with my own eyes senior officers take cocaine,” she alleged, adding, 'I found corruption, prostitution and drugs. Valentina says that conditions were very bad for the crew on board, and that she left because she was being threatened. 'Crewmembers were reduced to virtual slaves by the officers,' she says, adding that Costa still owes her money.

Valentina’s claims have come shortly after Schettino’s hair tested positive for cocaine in a routine test. He is denying all charges of taking alcohol or drugs, and is demanding a re-testing. 

Another ex employee, identified only as Mary G, had a similar tale to tell about Costa. 'The crew and officers are very superficial when it comes to dealing with an emergency. I only worked for Costa for two months in 2010 but a lot of the time officers and crew were drunk. At parties a lot of the time, we would ask ourselves ‘If there is an emergency who is going to save the ship?’ 

Mary G says she was assaulted by a drugged crewmember and is now going to court. 'I was also molested by a crew member at a lunch once after he had taken drugs. They made me sign doctored work sheets and time sheets. I am taking action against them and it will be in court soon,' she said.

Capt. Schettino is already facing charges of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship when passengers were still onboard and failing to communicate with maritime authorities. The Costa Concordia is lying partially submerged just outside Giglio harbour while salvage experts try to pump out more than 500,000 gallons of fuel from her tanks.

Meanwhile, Costa Cruises has said that they have a very strict drug and alcohol policy in place. Without reacting to the allegations of the two ex employees, Costa’s statement says, “It is not allowed in any way to bring on board, possess, trade or use narcotics, drugs or psychotropic drugs. On board our ships there are strict safety and surveillance measures concerning drugs possession’. Costa says that immediate disciplinary action is taken if required.

As for alcohol, Costa says 'It is not allowed to consume alcohol in quantity that can impair the capacity to perform the on board duties. The crew must abstain from the use of alcoholic beverages at least 4 hours before the start of their shift.'

P&I Clubs warn of new draconian drug law in Venezuela.

The International Group of P&I clubs has warned that seafarers could face prison terms of up to 25 years under a new Venezuelan drug law if drugs are found aboard their vessels, even if the mariners are not otherwise directly responsible or linked with them. The maritime community is believed to have raised concerns with Venezuela’s IMO representative that the law would result in innocent seafarers being detained, prosecuted and convicted if drug smugglers target their vessels without their knowledge.


Almost coincidentally with the International Group’s caution comes the news that the two Ukrainian crewmembers of the B Atlantic vessel, sentenced to nine years by courts in Venezuela last August after being detained there since 2007, have flown out from Caracas to serve out their nine year sentence in the Ukraine. The country’s ‘Kyiv Post’ reports that deal was struck between the Presidents of the two countries at a recent meeting; The B Atlantic Captain and Second Officer were detained and sentenced in Venezuela after cocaine was found attached to the vessel’s hull.

The new ‘Organic Drugs Law,’ passed in October last year in Venezuela, is seen as draconian by many. The ODL repealed earlier laws and, the Group warns, has increased the burden and potential penalties for ship-owners and crews. “The International Group has become increasingly concerned with what appears to be the indiscriminate and disproportionate application of criminal law in Venezuela in cases where vessels have been targeted by drug smugglers for the carriage of illegal narcotics”, it says. “It has become the usual practice of the Venezuelan authorities to charge the crew of a vessel on which drugs have been found with concealment and trafficking of narcotics”.

The not uncommon practice of hiding drugs by attaching them to the vessel’s hull or placing them inside cavities in the rudder stock in certain South American countries is well known. The new ODL law is unfair because makes the crew and ship-owner liable even if they are unaware of this illegal act. “Prosecutions under the previous narcotics legislation have resulted in a number of cases of seafarers being convicted and sentenced to substantial prison terms of 8-9 years without any obvious link being established between the activities of the crew and the presence of the drugs on board the vessel. Vessels and their cargo have also been confiscated by the courts. In other cases crews and vessels have been released without members of the crew being prosecuted but only after substantial periods of detention, the Group says, pointing out that the Venezuelan authorities ignore co-operative crews, since “the mere presence of drugs onboard a vessel has, in the great majority of cases, resulted in the detention of the vessel and crew and charges being brought against individual crewmembers”. The onerous law makes even an innocent seafarer liable to be jailed for anything between 15 and 25 years.

To add insult to injury, the Group points out that under the new ODL, if, within one year after the preventive seizure of the vessel, an owner has not entered an appearance or there is evidence that he has abandoned the vessel, the Prosecutor may apply for the vessel to be confiscated by the Venezuelan State. The law even makes local judges and prosecutors, if held to have not properly applied the new legislation, liable to imprisonment for 4 to 8 years!

Ukrainian Officers sentenced to nine years in Venezuela for drug trafficking.

But are they innocent?


Two Ukrainian officers of the cargo vessel, the “B Atlantic”, have been sentenced to nine years in prison in Venezuela for drug trafficking. Captain Volodymyr Ustymenko and Mate Yuriy Datchenko have already spent two years in Venezuela after 128 kgs of cocaine was discovered welded on to the hull of the vessel in 2007. The August 13 ruling has dismayed many observers. Their lawyer Aurelio Fernandez says that they would have been acquitted in any other country, and the convictions are “purely political.”


Worse, The Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine newspaper reports that the two officers could be sent to the island of Margarita, one of the world's worst prison colonies. "This place is infamous, and few people have managed to return from there," the newspaper says. It is believed that diplomatic pressure is being put by Ukraine on Venezuela, although the two countries have limited relations.

The two officers were arrested while on the 38,056-dwt bulker B Atlantic on August 12, 2007, when Venezuelan divers found 128 kg of cocaine clamped to the ship’s hull while it was moored in Lake Maracaibo. Capt. Ustymenko had told Lloyd’s List later that he was completely innocent. Their delayed trial saw the Ukrainian President and the Foreign Minister sending letters to Venezuela asking that it conduct the trial of the two Ukrainians under proper conditions.

Observers say that the two seem to be caught in a political game being played by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Capt. Ustymenko had indicated that much when he spoke last year, after spending 18 months in detention in an apartment in Venezuela, “I think it is for political reasons. Why should we stay here for so much time? Because the Venezuelan government wants to react about narcotic trafficking. We are not involved in this. How can we be, because these drugs were found about 10 m underwater near the propeller? That is why the crew and my security officer were not involved in this situation. We are innocent.”


Analysts saw that drug smugglers in Venezuela use a technique that was popular in Colombia until underwater inspections became compulsory for all ships leaving the bigger ports in that country. It is a travesty of justice, they claim, that crews and ships are seized in Venezuela if drugs are found welded on to the vessel. The seizure of the B Atlantic is not a unique case. Two years ago, the tanker Astro Saturn had been similarly detained. Two Greek officers were arrested from that vessel after cocaine was found attached to the hull of the ship in Puerto La Cruz in November 2008. Fernandes says, “Any owner that travels to Lake Maracaibo or Venezuela in general, and has the bad luck to have one of these criminal organisations attach a drug device underwater, is at risk of losing the vessel and crew.”

B Navi, the managers of the B Atlantic, had decided after the incident to stop operating in Venezuela. The Italian owners of the B Atlantic estimated the loss of millions of dollars of lost earnings, besides huge losses in the value of the vessel as she is effectively laid up and her condition has deteriorated.

Capt. Ustymenko’s daughter has been fighting a lonely battle on her father’s behalf back in the Ukraine. She had said last year that despite writing to the President of the Ukraine and to human rights organisations, “we don’t get any answer. They just say that the matter is under consideration.


She added, at the time, that her father was innocent. “He has been a sailor for 35 years, 24 years as a master. He has worked all his life as a sailor. He is not a drug dealer”.

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