Federal officials board cargo ship in Baltimore managed by same company as Dali

BALTIMORE — Federal officials boarded a container ship in the Port of Baltimore Saturday, according to the FBI Baltimore press office. The vessel is managed by the same company as the Dali, as reported by The Associated Press.

Agents from the FBI, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division and the Coast Guard Investigative Services boarded the Maersk Saltoro to conduct “court authorized law enforcement activity” the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland said in a statement. Neither agency was able to provide further comment.

The Maersk Saltoro is managed by Synergy Marine Pte. Ltd, the same manager of the 984-foot, 100,000-ton Dali container ship that toppled the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it ran into a support column after a power outage early on the morning of March 26, killing six workers fixing potholes on the span.

The 95,128 gross ton Maersk Saltoro container ship, sailing under a Singaporean flag, was set to arrive in Sri Lanka around Oct. 23 according to the VesselFinder website, a similar voyage to the Dali, which was also heading toward the South Asia country.

On Friday, lawsuits targeting Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and Synergy Marine, the owner and manager of the Dali, respectively, were filed on behalf of the six people who died in the Key Bridge collapse and claimed the catastrophe was preventable. In the week after the bridge collapse, the Singaporean companies invoked a 19th-century law to limit their liability.

Darrell Wilson, a Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine spokesman, said the owner and manager were looking “forward to our day in court to set the record straight” in a statement regarding the claims filed. Wilson confirmed Saturday in a statement sent to The Baltimore Sun that the FBI and the Coast Guard boarded the Maersk Saltoro in the Port of Baltimore.

The boarding of the vessel comes as several other lawsuits have been filed against Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine by the city of Baltimore, the U.S. Department of Justice and small businesses, among others, following the bridge collapse. The events of the collapse are also at the center of a criminal investigation led by the FBI.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a claim in U.S. District Court on Wednesday seeking $103 million in damages for federal efforts in cleanup and recovery calling the Dali “abjectly unseaworthy” and saying the bridge collapse was “entirely avoidable.”

Though the Patapsco River shipping channel has reopened, the Key Bridge collapse continues to cause traffic issues and economic consequences. The Maryland Transportation Authority, which owns the bridge, is in the process of receiving environmental approvals and designing a new structure with the company it awarded a contract to, Nebraska-based Kiewit Infrastructure Co.

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(Baltimore Sun reporter Hayes Gardner contributed to this article.)

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