Summary

The captain and chief engineer of the tanker, Guadulupe, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Newark, NJ, to lying to the Coast Guard when they emptied oily wastes into the high seas on at least 20 occasions. Elangovan Mani, the chief engineer, admitted to authorizing ship engineers to continue a practice of bypassing the ship’s incinerator and oily water separator system to discharge waste oil, sludge, and oily water mixtures in violation of MARPOL. To conceal the discharges, Mani made fraudulent entries in the required Oil Record Book and other records, which the U.S. Coast Guard examines. Captain Ashok Kumar admitted to conspiring to make false statements. The tanker is owned and operated by subsidiaries of OMI Corporation, Stamford, CT. A sentencing date has not been set.