Himalaya Express sounds like an adventure. In the world of maritime transport it is also a commercial name. It refers to a container ship service offered by the MSC shipping company to different ports on the Indian subcontinent. Security problems in the Red Sea to access the Suez Canal have modified part of its itinerary and stopovers.
The MSC Aries is one of the ships that cover this service in a discreet and punctual manner, moving thousands of containers without further incident. Whether the economy continues to turn depends, to a large extent, on the ships. 80% of world trade moves through seas and oceans aboard tankers, bulk carriers, roll-on cargo or container ships like the ship that became world news this Saturday. The ship has been hijacked by an airborne group of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. They have done so by taking advantage of the ship’s transit through Hormuz, an area that separates the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.
The narrowing of the navigation area reaches 39 kilometers, something that facilitates the boarding of ships at some points, as it is a mandatory passage. That is what has happened with the MSC Aries: several Iranian soldiers have boarded the ship. They did so by descending with ropes from a Russian-made Mil MI-17 helicopter that remained in flight over the deck of the ship during the operation.
The operation by the Iranian military has been very similar to the one carried out last November by a group of Houthi rebels from Yemen in the waters of the Red Sea. Taking advantage of the passage of the ship
Galaxy Leader car transporter near the coast of Yemen, an armed group landed on the deck and kidnapped it. The helicopter used by the Houthis was the same model as the one that kidnapped the container ship this Saturday.
In addition to the use of the same type of aircraft for both illicit actions, their common denominator is the direct relationship of the ships with Israeli owners. In the case of the Galaxy Leader, although the operator of the ship is the Japanese NYK, the owner is Ray Shipping Ltd., a company based in Tel Aviv. The group that hijacked the ship, which was sailing without cargo, indicated that the action was carried out in retaliation for Israel’s indiscriminate bombings against Gaza and today the Galaxy Leader remains in their possession.
What has happened with the MSC Aries can continue along the same path. IRNA, the state news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has confirmed that the ship has been diverted into Iranian waters. This 366-meter-long ship with a Portuguese flag, operated by the Swiss MSC, the main container shipping company in the world, also has a relationship with Israel. There would be the key to her kidnapping by the military forces of a country.
MSC, acronym for Mediterranean Shipping Company, founded in 1970 by Gianluigi Aponte and Rafaela Diamant with the Patricia, its first cargo ship, currently operates 800 container ships, a figure that has made it the world leader, surpassing the Danish Maersk. Not all of this shipping company’s fleet is owned by the Aponte family and although it operates and markets the capacity of these vessels. Some are chartered to other shipowners or have different commercial agreements for their exploitation.
The MSC Aries, built in the South Korean Hyunda shipyards, was launched in 2020 for Zodiac Maritime Ltd., a company based in London. Zodiac is in turn part of the holding company Ofer Global, based in Monaco and with interests in the maritime, real estate and hotel world, in addition to having significant investments in energy and banking. At the head of all this is the Israeli Eyal Ofer, born in Haifa in 1950 and who, according to the Forbes list, is the 83rd richest person in the world, with a fortune that exceeds $24 billion.
The ship hijacked by the Iranian commando is one of 130 under the ownership of Ofer and sails under the Portuguese flag. In reality, this flag is officially the RIN-MAR flag, of the International Maritime Registry of Madeira, created in the 80s by the Portuguese government in this Autonomous Region. The tax advantages that have been offered to shipowners in this territory have turned the islands into one of the largest registries in Europe with thousands of ships of all types sailing around the world: from sailboats to yachts or huge merchant ships such as the case of Aries.
Before its hijacking, the container ship made a stopover in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. From there he set sail on Friday the 12th in the afternoon, planning to sail for four days to Nhava Sheva, next to Bombay. The passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which on other dates would have no more history than the special attention paid from the command bridge, has coincided with a moment of special tension in the always hostile relations between Iran and Israel. The president of the United States already warned on Friday “of an eventual attack by Iran on Israeli targets” that would come “sooner rather than later.” Hours after these statements, a helicopter headed towards the container ship that operated the Himalaya Express service and complied with what Biden announced.
