- Grechushkin (Russian) was transporting ammonium nitrate from Georgia to Mozambique
- Grechushkin Ordered a last minute stop in Beirut to pick up additional cargo in the form of trucks, but the plan was abandoned when the first loaded truck almost broke the deck
- Lebanese officials then detained the ship for safety reasons
- Grechushkin declared bankruptcy and disappeared and the ship was impounded
- The ammonium nitrate was moved to a warehouse at the port and the ship eventually sank behind a breakwater, where its wreckage remains
- 4 years of complicated secrecy, corruption, shell companies, and “flags of convenience” involving Cypriot shipping magnate Manoli, the Portuguese illicit arms trafficking Vieira family, the Mozambique ruling elite, and Ukranian middle-man company Savaro, stymied solutions
- Lebanon then tried to offload the material to several organization including the Lebanese army and a local explosives manufacturer but they refused
- Lebanon then tried to return the cargo to Georgia but did not for unknown reasons
- On July 20, 2020, two weeks prior to the explosion, Lebanese security services warned the president that there were serious flaws with the storage of the ammonium nitrate
Then disaster.