Diego Garcia Invasion Attempt Mystery 'Solved', Case Closed?

A multi-national group’s attempt to enter forbidden Diego Garcia has made international news Tuesday, albeit conflicting  news reports, according to a BBC Asia article published Tuesday, Diego Garcia: Maldives tourists ‘were sailing to US base‘. The baffling event coincides with an exceptional renewed interest in Maldives and Diego Garcia links to the disappeared MH370 and its 239 passengers on August 8, 2013. Along with La Reunion debris “almost certainly” from a Boeing 777, Maldive islanders also have suddenly been finding possible plane debris, some of which original articles reported had been taken to an island to be burned.

The Maldives military says it stopped seven tourists it claims were sailing to a highly-guarded US military base in the Indian Ocean. BBC reported on Tuesday that the tourists were German and Italian: “The German and Italian tourists and 16 members of a fishing boat’s crew were intercepted after leaving the Maldives.” Others reported the tourists were from the U.S., Honduras, Germany and Italy. [See: MH370: Diego Garcia Breathtaking Invasion Attempt, New Mystery]

One minister said they were sailing to Diego Garcia, the British-controlled atoll that hosts a US military base. One tourist said reported claims that they were going to Diego Garcia were “absolutely ridiculous.” Giorgio Rosi Bellière, a 73-year-old Italian from Milan on board the boat, said they were on a “whale watching tour” and were not traveling to the atoll, some 750km (470 miles) away. Bellière arrived in the Maldives for the first time in 1983 and reportedly owns boats in the Maldives.

Hotel Maldives reports: By [1983], liveaboards, previously running on sails were now running on engines. The Italian diving pioneer, Raimondo Bucher, the Italian Custeau, convinced Rosi to go with him to the Maldives. Rosi, who’d recently recovered from decompression sickness caused by a scuba diving incident, cruised on the boat “Ambara” and scuba-dived in the Maldives with his friends. “The beauty of the country instantaneously captivated Rosi and he describes his earliest impression of the Maldives by saying that ‘it was like a thousand paintings done by many artists’.” [Watch the unforgettable YouTube video below sent to Rosi by Anna Cipriani, Il mondo sommerso delle MALDIVE.

"With this move of making better boats, Rosi’s promotional activities that initially focused on Italy was [sic] expanded to include countries from all over the world. According to Rosi, “It was by chance that I came here to the Maldives. And by chance I decided to be on a boat and do this. Now you can see many boats. Everything started because I did it and I promoted it, not only in Italy, I went to France, I went to Germany, I went to Russia and Singapore” and USA. ‘When I went to the USA, nobody had heard of the Maldives…. also I was the first to go to Russia and Singapore to promote Maldives as a beautiful liveaboard destination.

“Rosi… has operated liveaboards in the Maldives and promoted them around the world for more than twenty five years. ‘We started in February 1988 and have been doing that until today with different boats’, says Rosi. According to him, he has 3 to 4 boats operating in the country. Rosi has also successfully managed to fulfil his initial desire of repeatedly coming back to the Maldives. ‘This is my 100^th visit here’, he said  proudly.” [Emphasis added]

“We have done nothing wrong,” Bellière told the Maldives’ Minivan News.

Did he and his comrads, with all that experience at sea, not know they were heading into international waters? The crew failed to comply with international and local law on leaving the Maldives, according to Maldives Minister for Defence, Mohammed Zuhair. The crew had no passports, despite being in international waters. It was a Maldives island rumor that alerted the Coast Guard to search for the tourists and Maldivians fishermen. The talk of the Maldives was that the multi-nationals were trying to find locals willing to take them to Diego Garcia.

There are conflicting reports as to whether those on board had been arrested. Minivan News said they are all now been barred from leaving the Maldives. Mohamed Junaid  with Rajje.mv reports they were all arrested: “Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) Coast Guard has revealed that 16 Maldivians were arrested on the boat that left Addu atoll, allegedly on a course set for Diego Garcia. MNDF Coast Guard said that the 16 Maldivians were now under the custody of Maldives Police Service.”

Diego Garcia is a highly-guarded military base once used for bombing raids on Iraq and Afghanistan. Since then, it has been revealed that the base has been used for black operations involving disappearing individuals for Rendition and torture. In January, a former senior official in the George W Bush administration said the US government conducted interrogations of terror suspects at Diego Garcia. It has been widely postulated that the base is linked to the disappeared MH370 with high-value passengers.

The AFP reported later on Tuesday that the seven foreigners detained in the Maldives on suspicion of illegally attempting to travel to a US military base in neighboring Diego Garcia have been freed, the Maldivian government said Tuesday. The group was arrested as their boat operated by a 16-member local crew headed out of the southern atoll of Addu for what the authorities believed was an attempt to illegally enter the US military facility.

The group’s Italian tour operator, Belliere have stated later on Tuesday that he and his group of three Americans, a Canadian, a Hungarian and their Sri Lankan chef were ordered back to the southern atoll of Gan Monday after their boat was intercepted by the Maldivian coast guard.

“We were detained for about 12 hours. Now we been told that we are free to go,” he told AFP by telephone shortly before leaving the southern city of Addu.

A Maldivian government minister, Mohamed Shareef, confirmed to AFP that the men were free, adding that they had not been charged with any offence. Belliere again said they tried to set off on a whale watching expedition — a popular tourist activity in the honeymoon destination of the Maldives — after cancelling plans to travel to the remote Indian Ocean British Territory of Peros Banhos. The uninhabited tiny islet is on the northern edge of the Chagos archipelago where the tightly-guarded Diego Garcia US military facilities are located.

“When we knew we could not go to Peros Banhos, we canceled those plans. Since we were in Addu already, we decided to take a boat and go whale watching,” Belliere said.

“We tried to explain that we were not heading for Diego Garcia, but a coast guard helicopter ordered us back anyway.” They were just over 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Addu when they were intercepted, according to Maldivian officials.

Belliere said he had been arranging sea safaris in the Maldives since 1988 and his guests were high-spending adventure seekers. He insisted that they had not violated any local laws.