23 Busted In USA For Human & Drug Trafficking

CAMDEN, New Jersey - Federal authorities were investigating whether 23 men from Ghana and the Ivory Coast found aboard a cargo vessel over the weekend were part of a human trafficking operation.

The men were found by U.S. Customs Service agents who were on board the Aeolian Sky as part of a drug sting that resulted in two arrests.

While the customs agency found the men — some of them hiding above ceiling panels — the investigative work has shifted to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which is looking into whether they were part of a human smuggling operation, Diana Carrig, an assistant U.S. attorney involved in the case said Monday.

The men, whose ages range from 15 to 45, were all in good health. All were in the custody of the INS, said Kevin Bell, a spokesman for the Customs Service.

INS spokesman Kerry Gill would not talk about the case's specifics, including whether any of the stowaways were in custody. Gill did say that the men were all interviewed Sunday to determine why they were on the ship.

The Customs Service had been watching the Danish-owned ship since Nov. 17, when agents learned that it may have been used to smuggle drugs in addition to its legitimate cargo of lumber. Authorities had no suspicions that they would find stowaways, said Bell.

The 680-foot (204-meter) ship bearing the flag of Cyprus was formerly known as the Torm Birgitte. The vessel left Abidjan, Ivory Coast, two weeks ago and stopped Thursday in Brooklyn, where one stowaway was found, before making its way to Camden.

According to a criminal complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Camden, agents watched Saturday night as Augustine Ntim, a Ghana native, boarded the ship carrying a box.

When he came out empty-handed, an agent stopped him, patted him down and found two bricks of heroin weighing a total of just over 1 kilogram. The drug would have a street value of about $150,000, according to Bill Shralow, a spokesman for the Camden County prosecutor's office.

According to the complaint, Ntim, 39, later told investigators he was going to be paid $2,000 to pick up a package from someone on the ship and deliver it to a third person.

His plan, authorities said, was to deliver the drugs, then return to the ship with another box for the man on board, James Samuel Kittoe, a crewman from Ghana.

The box, containing a deep fryer, was found in Kittoe's cabin. According to the court filing, Kittoe denied any involvement in transporting drugs and said he believed the packages he carried across the Atlantic contained soap.

Both men were charged with conspiring to import drugs.