Two international shipping companies were sentenced Aug. 28 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to a combined $1.75 million fine and four years of probation for concealing discharges of oily waste at sea.
MSC Shipmanagement Limited, which operates the motor vessel MSC Samira III, pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships. The vessel’s owner, Hong Kong Spirit Shipping and Trading Limited, pleaded guilty to the same two counts. The conduct covered June 2024 through January 2025.
Second Engineer Mikhail Tsurikov previously pleaded guilty to an APPS violation and is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 10.
Prosecutors said senior engine-room officers directed illegal overboard discharges of oily bilge waste and failed to record those discharges in the ship’s oil record book, as U.S. and international rules require. The crew later presented the false record book to the U.S. Coast Guard during two January 2025 calls at the Port of Philadelphia.
“Foreign vessels that enter the ports of the United States and present false documents undermine our efforts to preserve our environment and enforce the law,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Energy and Natural Resources Division. “We will vigorously protect the integrity of our port state control system against actors who put profit over compliance with the law.”
“These companies repeatedly cut corners and covered it up, befouling the marine environment,” said U.S. Attorney David Metcalf for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “Their violations evidence both a disdain for our country’s laws and a clear case of greed. Shippers who illegally discharge pollutants and doctor their records will be prosecuted and held accountable.”
U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Roberto Rivera, captain of the port and commander of Sector Delaware Bay, said: “Deliberately concealing illegal discharges puts our marine environment at risk and undermines the domestic and international regulatory frameworks designed to keep our waterways safe. The Coast Guard remains committed to working with our federal partners to hold operators accountable when they violate the laws that protect our oceans.”
Coast Guard Investigative Service Assistant Special Agent in Charge Javiel Gonzalez said the case shows the agency’s role in uncovering falsified maritime records and enforcing the law at sea.
The U.S. Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay and the Coast Guard Investigative Service investigated. Trial Attorney Lauren Steele of ENRD’s Environmental Crimes Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Angella Middleton and Anthony Scicchitano prosecuted the case.
