NEWARK - Authorities at Port Newark launched a search on dozens of shipping containers in an effort to locate possible stowaways June 27.
The search was ordered when the Coast Guard boarded the Ville D’Aquarius cargo ship that morning and heard what appeared to be a knocking sound from one of the containers. This led to a massive search of the containers on the ship that took several hours to conduct.
In performing the search, several containers had to be moved to access the area that had the supposed knocking. After that, the containers were searched by manual and X-ray checks.
The ship holds 2,000 or so containers, and the search area is in the area of 200 containers. Its point of origin was the United Arab Emirates, where it then made its way to Pakistan, and then India, where it left 22 days ago. After India, the ship went to Egypt and then across the Atlantic Ocean. The Ville D’Aquarius was then supposed to head to Norfolk, VA.
It is suspected that two dozen Pakistanis may be attempting to illegal enter the United States on the vessel, but nothing was confirmed as of 4:30 pm on June 27.
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