The FBI and other federal law enforcement agents at sunrise on Saturday boarded a massive container ship in the Port of Baltimore called the Maersk Saltoro, which is managed by the same parent company as the cargo vessel that is at the center of a criminal investigation into the destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge earlier this year.
FBI agents were conducting “court authorized law enforcement activity” on the Maersk Saltoro alongside officials from the Coast Guard’s Investigative Services and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division, the bureau and the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland said in statements. They did not provide any more details, including what prompted the activity.
At around 6 a.m., about an hour before sunrise, the Saltoro arrived in the Port of Baltimore, gliding beneath what was once the span of the Key Bridge and into the Seagirt Marine Terminal. Officials, some wearing jackets with FBI insignia and hard hats, later pulled up in unmarked black SUVs and white sedans, then waited in line on the dock outside the ship.
The move came days after the Justice Department alleged in a new civil claim seeking more than $100 million that the owners of the ship that hit the Key Bridge, called the Dali, prioritized profits over safety and knowingly let a dangerous, unseaworthy vessel loose on the open water.
The ship that hit the Key Bridge, killing six, had known issues that should have been fixed or reported before it set sail, the Justice Department said. The cargo ship Dali lost power and crashed into one of the Francis Scott Key bridge’s supporting columns, causing the bridge to collapse.
“The ship’s owner and manager—who now ask the Court to limit their liability to less than $44 million—sent an ill-prepared crew on an abjectly unseaworthy vessel to ply the United States’ waterways,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in the filing. “They did so to reap the profits of conducting business in American ports, while at the same time cutting corners in ways that risked lives and infrastructure so that they could save time and money. Those responsible for the vessel must be held fully accountable for the catastrophic harm they caused, and punitive damages should be imposed to deter such misconduct.”
The FBI did not say whether Saturday’s activity was connected to the agency’s ongoing criminal investigation into the Dali’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Limited, and operator, Synergy Marine Pte Ltd.
Records show that the Dali and Saltoro ships are both Singapore-flagged vessels managed by Synergy Marine Group. The Saltoro is a sister ship to the Dali, according to data provider Clarksons, meaning they are of the same design. Like the Dali, the Saltoro was built by the South Korean company Hyundai in 2015 and is 984 feet long. Representatives for Synergy and Maersk did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment early Saturday morning.
In the civil claim related to the Dali, attorneys for the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland alleged that the companies “sent an ill-prepared crew on an abjectly unseaworthy vessel to ply the United States’ waterways,” detailing serious mechanical deficiencies that they said went unreported or unaddressed. The government specifically alleged that heavy vibrations on the ship had damaged its operating systems — an issue Synergy knew about but did not adequately fix, instead taking a “Band-Aid approach.”
While Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine have not been charged with any crimes, the civil claim asserted that their conduct violated the law. Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, said the filing “was anticipated” as part of the company’s bid to limit its financial liability over the catastrophe, adding “We do look forward to our day in court to set the record straight.”
FBI agents boarded and searched the Dali in April, with dozens of agents pulling up to the ship’s bow in numerous boats just after dawn and climbing aboard using a ladder.
When the Dali hit the Key Bridge on March 26 and the span fell into the Patapsco River, an eight-person construction crew was doing road repairs. Six of the men were killed, and two were injured. The wreckage cut off the Port of Baltimore’s shipping channel for months as the state and federal government worked to recover the bodies of the construction workers and remove massive chunks of debris.
In the recent court filing, the Justice Department alleged the incident was “entirely preventable.” The ship had experienced power loss the day before the crash, which by law should have been reported to the Coast Guard but was not. Once on the water on March 26, the vessel lost power again — prompting a cascading series of failures to the propeller, rudder and bow thruster, all backstops that could have prevented the crash.
Even the anchor did not help, the government alleged, because the crew had not prepared it for immediate release in an emergency, as required by law.
The families of the six men killed when the bridge collapsed, as well as the two men aboard the span who survived, asked a federal judge Friday to force the vessel’s owner to pay damages.
In a statement, Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, said that Wednesday’s filing “was anticipated” but that the “owner and manager will have no further comment on the merits of any claim at this time.”