KOTA KINABALU: Maritime officials confiscated two boats and nabbed eight crew members for the alleged involvement of oil smuggling in waters off Labuan, early Friday (Dec 30).
Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) director for Labuan, Maritime captain Nudin Jusoh said officials were conducting routine patrol at the area when they noticed two vessels listing side to side.
“It was around 3am that our officials noticed the vessels. They went to inspect and found that the crew were illegally transferring oil from one boat to the other,” he said in a statement.
He said both vessels and crew members had no documents supporting the activity.
“The area they were caught doing it was also not gazetted as a ship-to-ship transfer zone,” Nudin said.
He said both vessels were seized while the crew members aged between 30 and 50 were brought back for investigation under the Merchant Shipping Ordinance (MSO) 1952.
He urged the public to provide information of any suspected wrongdoings at sea to the Labuan Maritime hotline at 087-427999 or call the MERS 999 number for further action.
Authorities are still trying to calculate how many litres of oil had been transferred prior to the discovery.
