The Windward started life in 1974 as a Dutch fishing trawler. Three name changes and 47 years later, she stands accused of smuggling nearly a ton of cocaine into SA.
The 11 Bulgarians and Myanmarese on board were arrested when special forces troops pounced on the Windward in Saldanha Bay two weeks ago and found 973kg of cocaine in three hiding places.
This week, a lone policeman with a lunchbox on the passenger seat of his bakkie stood guard at the end of the pier where the vessel - painted in the white, green and red of the Bulgarian flag - is moored. Police forensics tape crisscrossed the deck.
On Thursday last week, the ship's Myanmarese crew and four Bulgarians appeared in court in Vredenburg on drug charges. The Bulgarians - Mario Vasev, 47, Asen Georgiev Ivanov, 51, Borislav Stoyanov Atanasov, 45, and Atanas Mikaylov Bikov, 53 - are allegedly part of a transnational crime syndicate with a strong foothold in SA.
It is believed Ivanov may own Windward, but he has a range of pseudonyms which could make it hard to prove. In court, he claimed to have such poor knowledge of English that an interpreter would be required.
But Ivanov had no trouble understanding Cape Town high court proceedings in 2017, when he tried to prevent the Asset Forfeiture Unit confiscating R2.6m in cash found in 2014 when the Hawks raided a Durbanville house belonging to Slovakian Jana Cipkalova.
His lawyer in that case, Charl Boshoff, said Ivanov did not request a translator and followed proceedings without a hitch. Judge Judith Cloete said Ivanov had failed to explain why he had so much cash, and on a balance of probabilities he had made it illegally.
The tip-off which led the Hawks to the house suggested foreigners were setting up a drug lab to manufacture mandrax. Warrant officer Johann Combrinck saw men working in hazmat suits and masks, and said officers who mounted the raid found Ivanov and two Bulgarian associates building a 2m-deep secret "channel" in the garage floor.
Cloete was also told that Ivanov owned a ship called Defiant and that its crew knew him as Alex Novak, a Slovakian.
Bulgarian news agencies reported last week that the Sofia government said three Bulgarians and a Slovakian had been arrested in SA, and sources said Ivanov may have another Slovakian identity, making it difficult to be sure where he really comes from.
According to John Adams, an engineer on the Defiant who was interviewed by the Hawks in 2014, the ship was a 55m "floating armoury" providing weapons and ammunition for security companies operating off the coast of Sudan against Somali pirates.
Sources have linked at least two other vessels to Ivanov. One is the Nesa 7, which was renamed the Atlantic Warrior and, like the Windward, flew a Panama flag after she was converted from a Japanese fishing trawler to a supply ship. According to tracking website MarineTraffic.com, its last known location - in February 2019 - was the Bulgarian port of Burgas.
Since then the ship has vanished, and the Sunday Times has established that the Windward's automatic identification system (AIS) - a tracking system that uses transceivers - was disabled during two trips out of Saldanha Bay between February 26 and March 1.
Law enforcement sources believe the Windward would head into international waters torendezvous with a mother ship that brought the cocaine from Central or South America.
Jason Eligh, senior drug expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, said it was likely the cocaine was going to be repackaged and shipped to Europe. "This seizure was made at the point of original importation, so really in the supply chain we're quite high up. This would have been a vessel that more than likely docked with a mother ship at sea and the load was then transferred," he said.
"The load that was transferred at sea would have probably come one step away from the original production point, from probably a Central American or South American port connection. The cocaine is probably quite pure."
Sources said switching off a ship's AIS in SA waters was unusual and suspicious behaviour, usually indicating illegal activity.
Bulgarian journalists told the Sunday Times that another of the Bulgarians arrested aboard the Windward, Atanasov, had been kidnapped in Sofia in 2009. Mediapool.bg quoted the interior ministry describing him as a criminal with a record of car theft, robbery and possession of explosives. The article said his associates were involved with a Nigerian syndicate in trafficking drugs through Europe using human drug mules.
• A longer version of this article appeared in Friday's edition of Sunday Times Daily
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