FERIT’s most significant finding was that the scuttling craze was linked to organized crime groups operating out of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. They seemed to have access to shipwrecking specialists. A welding contractor, for example, was hired to cut four half-meter holes in a vessel’s hull and then seal them with metal panels that could be removed when the time came. A few of the culprits were jailed, but most disappeared before they could be captured. The lesson, for those at Lloyd’s willing to listen, was that maritime fraud was no longer the preserve of rogue merchants and desperate
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