Flagged by Interpol, brought down by the EPA

By Abigail Goldman (contact)

Sunday, Nov. 15, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Joseph O’Connor was an Irish man with a Nevada business wanted by Interpol for selling ships to drug traffickers out of Spain.

O’Connor bought and sold boats connected to massive drug seizures at sea, a fact that’s put him in the cross hairs of international law enforcement for years.

So of all the things a guy like O’Connor probably figures he could go down for, polluting must have been a surprise.

And yet, in late October, O’Connor found himself in federal court, pleading guilty to environmental crimes. Namely, dumping debris off a boat into the San Diego Harbor; paint chips, rusted metal, tiles and concrete, among other items, that reportedly formed an underwater pile 15 feet long and six feet wide.

Of course, a lot had to happen before O’Connor pleaded guilty. For starters, agents at the Environmental Protection Agency had to find him. O’Connor left the country in 2006 and never came back — a move that earned him a spot on the EPA’s first public list of wanted fugitives, an FBI-style mug shot roster of about 20 alleged environmental criminals the agency released in December.

After the fugitive list was posted online, EPA officials gave interviews explaining that the agency has a special unit that investigates crime like any other federal agency, with full law enforcement powers, executing search warrants, carrying firearms and making arrests. If the list was designed to put more “eyes” on wanted fugitives, as EPA press officer Deb Berlin told the Sun, it also showed the world an EPA that wants respect, particularly after the agency’s criminal prosecutions dwindled during the Bush administration.

O’Connor’s most recent troubles started in 2005, when he was stopped in San Diego trying to export a 150-foot ship he purchased, the Maru, from the United States — his name had been flagged by Interpol.

O’Connor’s business, Britannia Shipping, was registered in Nevada, where people from across the country incorporate businesses because the state doesn’t demand corporate income taxes and lets business owners a keep details about their businesses private. In reality, Britannia Shipping operated in Spain, where officials claimed he knowingly supplied ships to drug smugglers.

Two months before O’Connor bought the Maru, another boat he sold, the Squilla, was stopped off Spain carrying almost nine tons of hashish worth roughly $40 million, newspapers reported.

The boat O’Connor was trying to export, the Maru, has its own connection to drug trafficking. In 2001, the vessel was seized 500 miles off Mexico. Its aging equipment and the rotting bait squid on board didn’t exactly give the impression of a legit fishing operation.

Investigators found 13 tons of cocaine hidden in the Maru, one of the largest high-seas drug seizures in U.S. history.

O’Connor bought the boat years later, in 2005, after U.S. Marshals auctioned the aging piece of floating evidence. As O’Connor dealt with the charges coming out of Spain, EPA authorities alleged he also worked with an employee to refurbish the boat, gutting it of old parts and, by cover of darkness, dumping those parts in the harbor to avoid paying for proper disposal.

When O’Connor and his employee were asked to stop dumping waste, according to an indictment, they continued and lied about it. When officials asked the men to remove the debris from the harbor floor, they pretended they did, but didn’t.

Sometime afterward, the Maru took sail again. It was stopped in Panama by officials who suspected the boat was involved in some kind of trafficking, but had to cut their inspection short when a bad storm blew in. By July 2007, a grand jury had indicted O’Connor on charges including violations of the Clean Water Act, though by then O’Connor had long since left the country, so EPA investigators waited until his July arrest in Malta.

In the end, O’Connor negotiated a plea that would keep him out of prison. He and his Nevada company, it’s license revoked, were hit with just over $70,000 in fines. His mug shot is still on the EPA Web site, a success story stamped in red: “CAPTURED.”

The Maru, meanwhile, appears to be up for sale.