Anyone who thinks that a Southern border wall will stop cocaine trafficking into this country has not been paying at attention to the news. Cocaine seizures from container ships have been setting records in ports along the East Coast for the last several months. Most recently, a shipping container full of beach chairs discharged in Baltimore was found to contain 333 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $10 million, a record seizure for the port.

The Baltimore bust was dwarfed by the 15.5 tonnes of cocaine, worth roughly $1 billion, seized last week by Federal authorities aboard the MSC Gayane in the Port of Philadelphia. This seizure was also a record for the port and was one of the largest drug seizures in US history.

This is the second recent major drug bust on an MSC container ship in the Port of Philadelphia. Last March, nearly 1,000 pounds of cocaine worth around $15 million was seized on the 9,400 TEU container ship, MSC Desiree, on its way from Colombia to Europe. Prior to the seizure on MSC Gayane, the seizure on the Desiree had set the port record.

And just a few miles to the north in Port Newark, in February, almost 1.5 tonnes of cocaine was found in a container on the MSC Carlotta. The seizure set a new record in Newark, as well.

Then cocaine was seized for a second time on the MSC Carlotta in April. This time 2.2 tonnes of cocaine was seized from the ship in Callao, Peru.

The ship on which the container carrying cocaine in Baltimore has not been identified. The obvious commonality in the other seizures is that each of the three ships is operated by MSC, Mediterranean Shipping Company, the second largest container ship operator in the world. The ships themselves are not owned by MSC. Until recently all three were owned by SinOceanic Shipping on long-term charter to MSC. SinOceanic apparently also managed and crewed the three ships.  Earlier this year, SinOceanic, which is controlled by the Chinese HNA group, sold the MSC Desiree and the MSC Gayane, with associated charters to Blue Star Shipping and to JP Morgan, respectively. Reportedly SinOceanic still provides manning and management services for the ships.