BOSTON -- U.S. Customs officials say they have unloaded nearly 33 tons of marijuana hidden in 'every nook and cranny' of a British freighter in one of the largest seizures in recent years in New England.
'It's just jam-packed with bales of marijuana,' Leonard Freedman, deputy assistant regional commissioner of the Customs Service, said of the Ramsland, seized last Wednesday in Boston Harbor because of its 'erratic course.'
'It was shoved into every nook and cranny, in almost every inaccessible part of the ship,' said Customs spokesman Ed Callanan.
Customs officials uncovered at least 16 tons of marijuana Tuesday and 16 tons Monday, believed to be from Colombia, hidden beneath the steel deck of the freighter, Freedman said.
They estimated the marijuana has a street value of about $1 million per ton, or about $32.5 million.
Officials believe the vessel was a mother ship on its way to rendezvous with smaller boats, which would distribute the drugs along the East Coast.
The six crewmen of the 213-foot, 1,380-ton British-registered freighter were ordered held without bond on drug smuggling charges pending a detention hearing today before a federal magistrate.
The crewmen are identified as the Ramsland's captain, Andreas G. Mallion, 24; his brother, Gary Mallion, 29, both from Maidstone, Kent, England; Kevin B. Tate, 23, of Kennington Ashford, Kent; Wesley M. Simmonds, 20, of Harrietshim, Kent; Barry J. Cogger, 23, of Culpepper Close, Holling Bourne, Kent, and John Harrison, 45, of Edefico Victoria, Grand Canary Islands.
The largest seizure in New England history occurred July 16, 1982, when 60 tons of marijuana were seized aboard a Danish coastal vessel captured in the Georges Bank area off Cape Cod, officials said.
The quantity of the Ramsland seizure was disputed by Robert Stutman, the special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Stutman estimated only 22 to 24 tons of marijuana was uncovered on the ship, which would make the seizure the seventh-largest in New England in recent years.
