An oil tanker suspected of belonging to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” arrived at a French port on Tuesday, an AFP reporter said, after the French navy detained it on suspicion of flying a false flag.
The vessel marks the fourth ship seized by France since September last year over alleged links to the “shadow fleet”, which is believed to help Russia bypass Western sanctions.
French authorities said the navy boarded the tanker Tagor on Sunday morning in international waters with support from Britain. The ship’s Russian captain had refused to comply with instructions.
The Kremlin described the seizure as “international piracy”.
The Tagor entered the Bay of Douarnenez in France’s western Brittany region on Tuesday morning, according to the AFP reporter.
French authorities said the tanker had been sailing from Murmansk in northwestern Russia and was heading towards Limbe, a coastal city in Cameroon. It was allegedly flying a Cameroonian flag without valid registration.
Officials said the vessel is suspected of transporting Russian or Iranian oil despite international sanctions. It is linked to shipping magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, according to open-source database Opensanctions.org.
Shamkhani is the son of Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani, a former adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Both were killed on 28 February, the first day of US-Israeli strikes that triggered the Middle East war.
French authorities said “shadow fleet” vessels often change flags or use invalid registrations, a practice known as flag-hopping, to avoid tracking.
France previously detained two tankers in the Mediterranean, the Deyna in March and the Grinch in January, before releasing them after fines were paid.
In another case, a French court in March sentenced a Chinese tanker captain in absentia to one year in jail and imposed a €150,000 ($177,000) fine for failing to obey orders to stop his ship off Brittany in September last year.
France announced in April a plan to double penalties for vessels that fail to fly a valid flag or refuse to comply with orders.
Western countries have imposed sanctions on hundreds of vessels linked to Russia’s “shadow fleet” over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Nearly 600 ships are currently under European Union sanctions.
