Friday 20 January 2017

"Man dies in boiler room 'explosion' in Felixstowe"

From the BBC:

A person has died in what has been described as an "explosion" on board a ship at the Port of Felixstowe. One person was killed and another taken to hospital after the apparent blast in one of the Manhattan Bridge's boiler rooms.

The Japanese ship is used as floating offices by a large number of commission based salesmen selling questionable investments to gullible pensioners. Suffolk Police said the activities were highly suspicious.

The ship's owner said telephones used by overly ambitious and aggressive salesmen had been running hot for some time and a "boiler back-fire" occurred while some particularly tasty deals were being closed at 23:05 GMT on Thursday.

"Bayswater Investments (Europe) Limited (BVI) and all within the organization wish to express their condolences to the family of the deceased, and their sympathy with Ken Williams, 69, of 23 Hyacinth Street, Norwich who has just cashed in his final salary pension in order to buy another 20,000 units in the non-existent Ashanti Gold & Minerals Fund," a spokesman said.

There will be a joint investigation between the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, local trading standards, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Serious Fraud Office and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency just as soon as they have sorted out their bureaucratic turf wars.

6 comments:

Lola said...

I live near Felixstowe, but I didn't know there were any 'wolves' there. 'The Wolf of Beatrice Avenue' just doesn't cut it somehow. Anyway, my late mother would not have approved of such neighbours...

Lola said...

Last paragraph. And not actually sorted it out. (See the history of all their failures over the Connaught fund, about which they were warned by a director with documents...which they ignored.)

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, that;s why they use the ship as a floating office. Of course they never sort these things out, Steve_L has regaled me with these tales that one set of bureaucrats can't be bothered and passes it on to the next who can't be bothered until finally somebody takes responsibility for deciding not to pursue the matter.

Bayard said...

Why do ships still have boiler rooms when they are no longer powered by steam?

barnacle bill said...

Mark, the Manhattan Bridge is a large container ship, the accident happened as the vessel was berthing during the early hours this morning and sadly a family somewhere have lost their bread winner today.

@Bayard
Modern ships need heat to keep the heavy fuel oil they burn liquid. Loose the heating coils in your fuel tanks and you end up with just a lump of asphalt.

Mark Wadsworth said...

BB, clearly, I was making fun of investment scammers, not sailors. Is that not clear from the context?