"Ghost ship" Bunker Scam Linked to OW Supply & Trading

The bunkers were supposedly delivered to Italian Navy at Augusta

A fuel oil scam involving the Italian Navy, a Rome-based entrepreneur with alleged links to mafia, and an ex-OW Supply & Trading A/S (OW Supply) executive is being investigated, Danish media outlet DR reports.

The scam reportedly involved OW Supply selling bunkers to the Italian Navy, but most of the fuel oil was never delivered, according to reports.

Investigative journals published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) put the figure paid by the Italian Navy at $11 million, of which $9 million worth of supplies were allegedly fraudulent.

It is said that OW Supply had contracted to supply bunkers to the Italian naval fleet at its Augusta base on Sicily and used an Italian broker said to be owned by a Rome entrepreneur, Global Chemical Broker S.R.L, for the physical delivery.

But most of the bunkers allegedly never reached their destination, despite three naval officers witnessing the deliveries, with only three of 11 recorded deliveries taking place.

It is also said that the ship supposedly used for the deliveries, Victory I, was registered as sunk before some of the deliveries took place, with media dubbing it the "ghost ship".

DR reports that the unnamed, Danish OW Supply executive is wanted for questioning in Italy but currently remains in Denmark cooperating with Danish serious crime authorities.

Ghost ship

"The case comes as a huge surprise for my client, and it has, according to him no connection to the other aspects of OW Bunker, which led to its collapse in November," said Peter Martin Blinkenberg, lawyer for the executive.

Blinkenberg said the case was "undramatic" from a Danish point of view.

But according to the OCCRP report, Italian Judge Alessandro Arturi, who is said to be leading a preliminary investigation into the affair, has commented that the contract between the Italian Navy and OW Supply was so vague as to be suspicious.

"One cannot help wondering if this vagueness is a deliberate attempt at creating the environment for the criminal plan – in which case we are staring at a criminal enterprise much wider than what we have discovered so far," he said.

OW Bunker collapsed in early November citing an alleged $125 million fraud at its Singapore subsidiary Dynamic Oil Trading but those involved have denied any fraud was perpetrated.