“Of course, there are legal transports of weapons or defense material (through Finland) but in this case the cargo was marked as containing fireworks.”-Paivi Rasanen, Interior Minister of Finland

On December 21, Finnish port authorities discovered 160 tons of explosives and 69 U.S. made Patriot missiles on a British ship heading for China.  The cargo was labeled “fireworks”!

The M/S Thor Liberty arrived in Finland on December 15, it had just left Germany two days prior.  Not only is it not normal to label weapon systems as fireworks, but under Finnish law shipping companies must get permission before docking with weapons on board.

Finnish Customs officials say the ship has no documentation regarding where they got the U.S. made weapons, or where they were going to take them: “We have impounded the explosives and missiles and asked the Defense Ministry to transport and store them. At this stage we don’t know where it (the cargo) was loaded on the ship or if the Thor Liberty planned a drop before its port of destination in China.”-Petri Lounatmaa

Finnish officials are questioning the crew of the Thor Liberty.