Initial reports following the devastating explosion in Beirut said that the owner of the ship bearing the chemicals that ended up being stored in the port and exploding was Russian businessman Igor Grechushkin. However, a recent report by the German weekly Der Spiegel and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), unveiled the fact that the ship was actually owned by a Cypriot businessman with ties to a Hezbollah affiliated bank. The businessman, Charalambos Manoli, went to great lengths to hide his ownership of the ship, including having the ship registered in Moldova and certified in Georgia. Grechuskhin only chartered the ship, which ended up being delayed in the Beirut Port in 2013 on its way from Georgia to Mozambique. The ship was then seized due to the fact that Manoli had outstanding debts. Manoli owed over $1 million to FBME, a bank in Tanzania which has been accused by the US of money laundering for Hezbollah and was eventually closed due to the claims. Since the ship was not reclaimed, Lebanese authorities removed the ill-fated cargo and stored it in the port while the ship eventually sunk. The 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, stored haphazardly in the port despite its volatile nature, remained there despite repeated requests by port officials to have them removed. The Mozambican buyer of the ammonium nitrate, Fábrica de Explosivos de Moçambique (FEM), never claimed the chemicals after they were stored in Beirut, the report added, and made no efforts to retrieve them. Furthermore, according to the report, a large amount of the ammonium nitrate was apparently stolen shortly before the explosion, since according to an evaluation of European intelligence officials, only 700 to 1,000 tons of the chemicals exploded out of the 2,750 tons that arrived in Beirut. An inspection of the warehouse in question earlier this year revealed the missing chemicals, a missing gate and a huge hole in one wall. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

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