A cargo ship last heard from on July 28th has apparently vanished. The Arctic Sea, known to be carrying £1 million worth of timber from Finland to Algeria, was last heard from by British authorities at Dover and the end of July, but since then… nothing. The ship is thought to have made it through the English Channel, but after rounding the tip of France, the fate of the ship is uncertain. Authorities are pretty sure that the ship didn’t sink, as there was neither a distress call nor has anyone spotted any of the lumber (or any other wreckage).
There are several theories as to what might have happened: that the ship was taken by pirates, a common occurrence off the coast of east Africa, but unknown in Northern European waters for two centuries; that there is some commercial or ownership dispute (the ship is “Latvian-owned, Maltese-flagged and operating from the Russian port of Arkhangelsk”); or possibly that the ship contained some type of undeclared and valuable cargo, and Russian gangsters have seized the ship. The mystery deepens when you consider that the crew complained about the ship being seized by Russian gangsters whilst in Swedish waters; the gangsters are said to have boarded the ship, tied up the crew, then spent 12 hours in the cargo hold looking for something.
Read more about it here.