Federal agents boarded a ship managed by the same company involved in the Baltimore Francis Scott Key Bridge collision, the FBI said Saturday.
The ship, the Maersk Saltoro, is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and managed by Synergy Marine Group. The companies are being sued by the Justice Department for more than $100 million in connection with their actions in the March bridge crash, with the agency alleging that the owner of the Dali and the company acted recklessly.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division and Coast Guard Investigative Services are present aboard the Maersk Saltoro conducting court authorized law enforcement activity,” statements from both the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office said. No other details were offered.
Darrell Wilson, a Grace Ocean spokesman, confirmed to the Associated Press that the FBI and Coast Guard boarded the ship in the Port of Baltimore on Saturday morning.
The March 26th Baltimore bridge collapse killed six people and cost Maryland millions in damages. A May cost estimate showed the state will pay $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion to rebuild the bridge over a four-year period with an open date aimed at fall 2028.
Government workers removed “more than 50,000 tons of steel, concrete, and asphalt from the channel and from the Dali itself. While these efforts were underway, temporary channels were also cleared to start relieving the bottleneck at the Port of Baltimore and mitigating some of the economic devastation caused by the Dali,” Ben Mizer, DOJ principal deputy associate attorney general, said in a call with reporters. “The work was complex, costly, time consuming, and, at times, dangerous.”
Baltimore’s waterway was largely blocked for months until it was reopened in June.
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Politically, the collapse brought a media frenzy into Maryland, highlighting state Gov. Wes Moore‘s (D-MD) efforts toward restoring the shipping lane.
Moore was elected as the state’s governor in 2023, succeeding Republican Larry Hogan.
