Dead in the Water: Murder and Fraud in the World's Most Secretive Industry

by Matthew Campbell

When COVID-19 brought global trade and tourism to a halt in 2020, many maritime businesses faced ruin. Iliopoulos, with typical bravado, saw an opportunity. He bought at least six passenger vessels, at fire-sale prices, from desperate cruise operators whose businesses had shut down. Within a few months he’d sold two for scrap, earning three times the $9 million he paid, according to estimates by trade publications. Like the Brillante before them, the Columbus and the Magellan were dismantled by hand and stripped of recyclable material at Indian and Pakistani shipbreaking yards, some of the world’s most dangerous and polluted workplaces. Because of the human and environmental cost, it’s illegal for European companies to send vessels to either country to be broken down without first removing all potentially hazardous waste, but the rules are easily skirted by transferring ownership offshore. The other four liners that Iliopoulos bought during the pandemic were, at the time of writing, laid up in Greek ports awaiting their fate. Given his talent for turning old ships into money, they should earn him a healthy return.