The 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate which the ship was carrying was confiscated and brought to shore in 2014, and later contributed to the catastrophic 2020 Beirut explosion.

[1][2] The ship's most recent reported registered owner, Panamanian-registered Briarwood Corp, acquired the vessel in August 2008 and renamed it Rhosus.

[11] In September 2013, the freighter was chartered to carry a cargo of high-density ammonium nitrate from Georgian fertilizer maker, Rustavi Azot LLC, in Georgia to be delivered to Fábrica de Explosivos Moçambique (FEM) in Matola, Mozambique.

[f][5][18][23] The owner of Rhosus, Igor Grechushkin, claimed to have become bankrupt[g] and, after the charterers lost interest in the cargo, he abandoned the ship.

[5][12][i] The dangerous cargo was then brought ashore in 2014 and placed in a building, Hangar 12, at the port, pursuant to a court order, until it exploded, with catastrophic consequences, on 4 August 2020.

[12][18][29][30][31] In a 2020 interview, the former master of Rhosus stated that there was a small hole in the hull and, with no crew on board to periodically pump the sea water out, the vessel sank "two or three years ago" after the cargo had been unloaded.

Since 2018, Rhosus's flag has been reported as "unknown" in official databases and the vessel's status was updated to "total loss" in August 2020.

[1][2][34] A thorough investigation by Der Spiegel and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) into the 2020 Beirut explosion concluded that:[20][35] In October 2020, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said that the country's state prosecution had asked Interpol to detain two Russian citizens, the captain and the owner of Rhosus, as its cargo of ammonium nitrate was blamed for the explosion.