He added that stowaways are often savvy and skilled adversaries to captains or the shipping companies left with figuring out how to handle them. Many stowaways know, for example, that if they allege that they were assaulted by the crew, they can tie up a ship with a long investigation in port, leading to delays costing millions of dollars, Carlson said. “You have a tanker carrying $200 million worth of crude for Exxon or Mobil, tugs, supply boats, dock agents, an entire port refinery scene waiting to unload it in an extremely tight window of time before that ship needs to clear the berth,”
...more
