As Rough As It May Seem,It's Still Steady As You Go...
HMCS Charlottetown finds drugs aboard dhow in the Arabian Sea
By Charmion Chaplin-Thomas
Credit: Cpl Robert LeBlanc
A member of the HMCS Charlottetown boarding team pries up deck planking during the later stages of a search that revealed 4.3 tons of hashish hidden in the fuel tanks. |
On Feb. 18, while conducting maritime security operations near the coast of Pakistan, HMCS
Charlottetown received a report of a vessel linked to terrorist activities.
Charlottetown located and tracked the
Al Moula Madad, a Pakistani dhow, to a position just outside Pakistan’s territorial waters, and received direction from Combined Task Force (CTF) 150 to board and search it. While searching the dhow, the boarding team from HMCS
Charlottetown discovered sacks of hashish hidden in the fuel tanks and under the deck planking. In all, some 4.3 tons of hashish was found.
CTF 150 reported the dhow and its cargo to the Pakistani authorities, which have jurisdiction over vessels registered in Pakistan even on the high seas. At their request, the Charlottetown boarding team took samples of the cargo and heaved the rest overboard. Leaving the samples aboard the dhow, the boarding team left the dhow and returned to HMCS Charlottetown. A Pakistani Coast Guard vessel arrived shortly thereafter and took charge of the vessel and its crew.
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Credit: Cpl Robert Leblanc
Drugs are pulled from beneath the deck planking of the dhow.
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The frigate HMCS
Charlottetown is currently operating in the Arabian Sea with CTF 150, the coalition fleet engaged in the international campaign against terrorism. Coalition ships assigned to CTF 150 operate throughout the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. For the last several months CTF 150 has been under the command of Commodore Hasham Saddique of Pakistan, who handed over to Rear-Admiral Jean L. Kerignard of France on Feb. 25. HMCS
Charlottetown is deployed on Operation ALTAIR, Canada’s maritime contribution to the continuing U.S.-led campaign against terrorism known as Operation
ENDURING FREEDOM. She left her home port of Halifax on Nov. 1,
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