By
Steve Muchoki
May 6th, 2024
U.S. customs seized a ship full of cocaine owned by JPMorgan Asset Management. They declined to comment but everybody remembers how their CEO Jamie Dimon compared Bitcoin with the criminal activity.
JPMorgan may not like Bitcoin because “criminals are using it” but just few weeks ago, several thousand Wall Street traders were said to be pretty nervous. The reason – shipping containers full of illegal drugs, mostly cocaine, were found and seized at a Philadelphia port in what authorities described as the largest seizure in the region’s history.
Of course, the beginning of the sentence was a joke (or was it?) but the truth is that back in March there was a ton and a half of cocaine seized at the port of New York and New Jersey, in what was described as the biggest bust of the century. When you compare it to this one – it seems like Charlie Sheen Vs. Pablo Escobar. The Philly seizure was about ten times greater.
July 4 (what a date to celebrate, right?), federal prosecutors in Philadelphia have seized a container ship operated by the Mediterranean Shipping Co. Now we’re coming to the fun part. The ship is owned by client assets in a maritime strategy offered by JPMorgan Asset Management and is operated by the Switzerland-based MSC.
*BREAKING NEWS* Federal authorities have seized approximately 16.5 TONS of cocaine from a large ship at the Packer Marine Terminal in Philadelphia. This is the largest drug seizure in the history of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. @ICEgov @CBPMidAtlantic @PhillyPolice @USCG
— U.S. Attorney EDPA (@USAO_EDPA) June 18, 2019
William McSwain, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection executed the seizure warrant for the MSC Gayane. He said:
“When a vessel brings in such an outrageous amount of deadly drugs into Philadelphia waters, my office will pursue the most severe consequences possible.”
Basil Karatzas, chief executive officer of valuation advisory Karatzas Marine Advisors & Co., said a newbuild container ship meeting the Gayane’s specifications would cost around $150 million. In the second-hand market, the Gayane might fetch around $100 million or more. He also added that he is completely sure that J.P. Morgan will be going after MSC if the U.S. government arrests and auctions this vessel. He said:
“The charterer is responsible for everything that occurs on the ship and returning it to its owner.”
But of course, JPMorgan declined to comment. Why would they when they are just up to start trials of their “JPM Coin” cryptocurrency in conjunction with corporate clients.
You remember JPM Coin, do you? It came right after its CEO Jamie Dimon did everything in his power to burry Bitcoin calling him nice words as “shit”, “scam”, “fraud”, “no-use” etc. After that, JPMorgan decided to go out with their own, wait for it – cryptocurrency.
Investor, trader and Bitcoin proponent Anthony Pompliano said it best:
JPMorgan owns a ship that was just seized by US Customs because it had $1 billion of drugs on it.
$1,000,000,000 of drugs on a single ship.
But Bitcoin is bad and the criminals should be stopped! 😂
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) July 9, 2019
There’s more. Gabor Gurbacs, Director of Digital Asset Strategy at VanEck asked an interesting question:
“Is cocaine tier 1, tier 2 or tier 3 capital?”
— Gabor Gurbacs (@gaborgurbacs) July 9, 2019
We would call it probably a Tier 2 since it could be about bank’s revaluation reserves, undisclosed reserves or even hybrid instruments, who knows?
One of the users (of Twitter, not cocaine you silly people) called Grey Wings tweeted:
https://twitter.com/greywings313/status/1148767121377116161
And of course we got a real footage:
https://twitter.com/MaximumJill/status/1148705648231583744
Be it as it may, let’s just go back to Mr. Dimon for a second. Back in September 2017, when Bitcoin was at its heights, Dimon said that the digital currency was a “fraud” and that his firm would fire anyone at the bank that traded it “in a second”, he also alluded to the fact that Bitcoin has been associated with criminal activities as well.
He said there could be a market for Bitcoins if you were dealing with North Korea, which has reportedly asked for Bitcoin as a ransom payment during several cyberattacks, or drug dealers in Venezuela and Ecuador.
No epilogue needed.