The tug boat So­lo Creed, which was re­spon­si­ble for aban­don­ing the cap­sized barge Gulf­stream and caus­ing a ma­jor oil spill in To­ba­go in Feb­ru­ary this year,  has been “ar­rest­ed” by Trinidad and To­ba­go of­fi­cials in An­go­la.

The an­nounce­ment came from Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert as he wrapped up the 2025 Bud­get de­bate in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

While on his legs, Im­bert was passed a piece of pa­per which he read from in­to the Hansard.

“The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has asked me to an­nounce...on Fri­day last, through the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice, Trinidad and To­ba­go ar­rest­ed the tug, the So­lo Creed in An­go­la, which was the aban­doned barge of To­ba­go that caused so much dam­age in To­ba­go,” he said.

“That is per­for­mance PNM style, per­for­mance PNM style. We tracked down that barge and we ar­rest­ed it,” he added.

A ship ar­rest refers to a civ­il law pro­ce­dure where­by a ma­rine ves­sel may be ar­rest­ed by ju­di­cial process and held un­der State au­thor­i­ty. The ship is de­tained for the pur­pose of se­cur­ing a mar­itime claim.

The Feb­ru­ary 7, 2024 oil spill af­fect­ed To­ba­go’s coast­line be­tween Scar­bor­ough and Cove.

Over 50, 000 bar­rels of oil were ex­tract­ed from the barge.

In May, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed ex­clu­sive­ly that it was seized in Lu­an­da, An­go­la. 

Since Feb­ru­ary 5, the ship’s Au­to­mat­ic Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Sys­tem (AIS) lo­ca­tion broad­cast had been switched off, and two days lat­er, on Feb­ru­ary 7, fu­el be­gan leak­ing from the over­turned, clear­ly aban­doned barge. 

In June, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young said de­spite great ef­forts all search­es had failed to lo­cate the tug So­lo Creed.

He said that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard had been work­ing in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Guyana Coast Guard and the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (IM­PACS) to as­sist in iden­ti­fy­ing the own­er.

“Once own­er­ship is es­tab­lished, this Gov­ern­ment will take le­gal ac­tion against the pur­port­ed own­ers of the barge Gulf­stream and/or the own­er of the tug So­lo Creed,” Young said then.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter Young, who is act­ing as Prime Min­is­ter, as well as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, seek­ing to find out the next steps now that the So­lo Creed had been ar­rest­ed. THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine was al­so con­tact­ed for his re­ac­tion. How­ev­er, there was no re­sponse up to press time.