Foreign vessels held over illegal fuel transfer

conCaught red-handed: Two of the three vessels anchored close together off Tanjung Piai in Johor.

JOHOR BARU: Three foreign vessels have been detained by the state Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) for illegally transferring fuel off Tanjung Piai here.

MMEA enforcement chief Capt Aminuddin Abd Rashid said that the vessels were anchored about 1.9 nautical miles off Tanjung Piai on Thursday.

He said MMEA officials checked and discovered that the Dijaya 8 was in the midst of transferring 11,000 litres of lube oil to another ship MV Tanto Bersatu, while a third vessel MT Sentek 21 was transferring 380,000 litres of marine fuel oil to MV Tanto Bersatu.

“None of the ships had permission to transfer oil and they had also failed to inform the authorities of their presence in Malaysian waters,” he said yesterday.

Capt Aminuddin said MV Tanto Bersatu and Dijaya 8 were registered in Indonesia while MT Sentek 21 was registered in Singapore.

He said the three vessels had 36 crew, inclu­ding 33 Indonesians, two Filipinos and one from Myanmar, all aged between 20 and 60 years.

“The crewmen have been brought to the MMEA headquarters for further investigations,” he added.