Chinese ship suspected of looting WWII wrecks arrested

The Chinese dredger suspected of looting two World War II Royal Navy shipwrecks last year has been detained by Malaysian maritime authorities.

MV Chuan Hong 68 and the entire crew is being held for paperwork violations, including port clearance and carrying 60 unregistered LPG containers on board, and not for illegal looting, according to a report in Maritime Manager.

But the bigger question being raised by the Southeast Asian media and investigated by local authorities is how a ship like Chuan Hong 68 With his years of “bad reputation” he is even allowed to return to Malaysian waters.

Kuala Lumpur New Straits Times Malaysian investigators are reportedly investigating why and by what means Chuan Hong 68 received permission to carry out salvage operations on MV armada in February and a wreck called “Maritime Fidelity” in September last year, both off Johor.

The dredger’s looting of the two warships for their steel, aluminum and brass fittings took place in May 2023. Since these metals were produced before the use and testing of nuclear weapons, they are considered very valuable in highly specialized manufacturing.

During embarkation in May 2023 of the Chuan Hong 68, Inspectors found rusted artillery shells and other junk that probably came from the two warships. Shortly after the boarding, Malaysian authorities seized two cannons, more ammunition and other items from a junkyard that also probably came from sunken warships.

The newspaper’s report said both “alerts to seafarers” that salvage operations were underway had been removed from the country’s maritime website. These alerts also help authorities to identify which ships are operating in their territorial waters.

The local police, Malaysia’s National Heritage Department, Maritime Enforcement Agency and Marine Department are also involved in the investigation into how the permits were issued and deleted from the site.

In May last year, before the second salvage operation began, Malaysian authorities Chuan Hong 68 in the same waters for alleged destruction and salvage of the wreck of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Defensereported USNI News.

Both were sunk by Japanese bombers during the invasion of the Malay Peninsula in December 1941, a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Director General of the Royal Navy Museum said in a statement to USNI News that the illegal salvage operation in Malaysia demonstrated how vulnerable historic sites are to thieves seeking to plunder war graves.

The Royal Navy described the dredging of the historic wreck site as “disgraceful”. 840 crew members lost their lives in the attack by Japanese bombers.

USNI News reported six years ago that the British Ministry of Defense was so concerned about illegal dredging of wreck sites, looting and pillaging that it sent a task force of survey ships to the area to examine the condition of the wrecks. The ministry said at the time it would also monitor the waters by satellite to track activity near the wrecks.

Southeast Asian news media report this week Chuan Hong 68 is also suspected of having illegally salvaged wrecks of Dutch warships in the Java Sea in Indonesia, as well as in Singapore, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Malaysian authorities have not released any update on the case in the past 12 months since the two Royal Navy ships were allegedly looted. The New Stairs Times also reported Chuan Hong 68 has repeatedly returned to the same operational area northeast of the Singapore Strait, often disappearing from the Navy’s automatic identification system for weeks at a time.

Related