Us Marshals Service News

The United States has sold more than a million barrels of Iranian fuel seized under its sanctions program last year, a Department of Justice official said, as another ship with intercepted Iranian crude oil sails to a U.S. port.The seizures are part of Washington's tough economic sanctions on Tehran imposed over its nuclear program and the U.S. designation of a number of Iranian groups as terrorists, continuing decades of rancor between the two nations. Iran rejects U.S. accusations of wrongdoing.In a new approach last year, the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump used civil forfeiture procedures to seize some 1.2 million barrels of gasoline it said were being sent from Iran to Venezuela aboard four tankers.The shipments…

The Puerto Rico Police Department (PRPD) has taken delivery of a new patrol boat from Louisiana-based boatbuilder Metal Shark. The new 35-foot Defiant welded aluminum pilothouse patrol vessel, built at Metal Shark’s Jeanerette, La. production facility, joins the fleet of 36-foot Metal Shark Fearless-class high performance center console patrol boats delivered to the PRPD a year ago. The PRPD’s new patrol boat features a fully-enclosed, climate-controlled pilothouse for all weather operation, outfitted with Shockwave shock-mitigating seating for a crew of four, the builder said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Office of Field Operations, at the Charleston Seaport arrested a Goose Creek, S.C., woman on Wednesday who was wanted in connection with a local murder. The woman, destined to depart Charleston for the Bahamas on December 7, was the subject of an arrest warrant out of Berkeley County, S.C., for Obstructing Justice – Aiding and Abetting Murder. After verifying the individual’s identity and confirming the warrant, CBP officers, with assistance from South Carolina Ports Authority Police, arrested the individual and turned her over to the U.S. Marshals Service. “Intercepting dangerous criminals in…

The U.S. Marshals Service has blocked a vessel headed to the Monroe Energy refinery outside of Philadelphia from leaving the port in connection with a civil court order, the federal agency said.   The order was issued by a civil court judge in Eastern federal court related to failure to make payments, the federal agency said on Friday.   The vessel's name is Advantage Avenue, the federal agency said.   (Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Chris Reese)

The Disney Fantasy, a cruise ship owned and operated by Disney Cruise Line, part of The Walt Disney Company,  rescued three people clinging to a capsized boat near Cuba late last week who turned out to be fugitives. The three were rescued by the Disney cruise liner and turned over to the U.S. Coast Guard, who discovered upon fingerprint analysis that two of the individuals had outstanding arrest warrants in New Orleans, according to U.S. Marshal Amos Rojas Jr. of the Southern District of Florida. "Only 25 miles from their homeland, the three were later turned over to authorities in Florida after the Coast Guard discovered they were wanted fugitives," say local news and media.

An Ohio man who recovered as much as $400 million in gold from a shipwreck has been arrested in Florida after two years on the run and was scheduled to appear in federal court on Wednesday. Tommy Thompson was detained on Tuesday night at a Hilton hotel in west Boca Raton, Florida, said Barry Golden, spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service in the Southern District of Florida. He was due to appear in federal court in West Palm Beach on Wednesday, Golden said. He is wanted for failing to appear in a federal court in Ohio in 2012. Thompson was arrested with a woman, Alison Antekeier, who also has an outstanding arrest warrant in Ohio, according to Golden. They appeared to have been living in the hotel for about two years, he said.

The Iraqi oil ministry said on Thursday it would challenge a U.S. court decision that stopped U.S. Marshals from seizing some one million barrels of disputed Kurdish oil docked near Texas. On Monday, a U.S. district court ruled in favour of a request by Iraq's Kurdish region that a demand by the Iraqi government for U.S. authorities to seize the Kurdish oil shipment be scrapped. However, the court gave Baghdad 10 days to resubmit its case. "The ministry of oil is emphasising that it is preparing the amended request and will forward it in the required period," the oil ministry said in a statement. "The decision of the court is only to lift the seizure of the shipment while at sea. Therefore they referred to American maritime law.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq asked a U.S. court on Monday to throw out an order to seize some 1 million barrels of disputed crude oil and allow the cargo to be freely delivered in Texas. The United Kalavrvta tanker, carrying about $100 million worth of Kurdish crude, has been anchored near Texas for nine days, as the Iraqi region of Kurdistan wages a legal battle over ownership with the central government of Iraq. At the request of Baghdad, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to take control of the cargo last week, but then said the tanker was outside its jurisdiction and beyond U.S. territory in the Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. authorities are set to seize a cargo of oil from Iraqi Kurdistan anchored off the Texas coast after a judge approved a request from Baghdad, raising the stakes in an oil sales dispute between Iraq's central government and the autonomous region. The tanker United Kalavrvta, carrying some 1 million barrels of Iraqi Kurdish crude oil worth more than $100 million, arrived near Galveston Bay on Saturday, but has yet to unload its disputed cargo. The U.S. judge's approval of the request from Baghdad deals another blow to the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) attempts to establish its own oil sales, which are seen as a crucial step in the autonomous region's push for independence.

Acting on a request from the central government in Iraq, a U.S. judge has signed an order telling the U.S. Marshals Service to seize a cargo of oil from Iraqi Kurdistan aboard a tanker off the coast of Texas, court filings showed early on Tuesday. To carry out the order from Magistrate Judge Nancy K. Johnson of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, the Marshals Service may need to rely on companies in the Galveston Bay area that provide crude offloading services. The United Kalavrvta tanker, which is too large to enter the port of Galveston near Houston, was given clearance by the U.S. Coast Guard on Sunday to transfer its cargo offshore to smaller boats that would deliver it to the U.S. mainland.

L-3 Communications has agreed to acquire the Detection Systems business of PerkinElmer, for approximately $100 million in cash. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2002 and is subject to clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and other customary conditions. Detection Systems is expected to be accretive to L-3's earnings in 2002. PerkinElmer's Detection Systems business offers X-ray screening for three major security applications: aviation systems for checked and oversized baggage, break bulk cargo and air freight; port and border applications including pallets, break bulk and air freight; and facility protection, such as parcels, mail and cargo.

At the request of the U.S. Marshals Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation, special agents from the Office for Law Enforcement (OLE) are engaged in the investigation and emergency operations associated with the terrorist activities in Boston and New York, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on Monday. Twenty-seven special agents from NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA fisheries) OLE have been assigned to various tasks associated with the investigation, emergency operations and security details in various northeast locations. "Our agents responded to a support request shortly after the planes crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon," said OLE Chief Dale J. Jones. The OLE has four "teams" assisting the U.S.