Indian captain of suspected Russian shadow tanker in French custody

MARTIGUES (AFP): France on Sunday took into custody the Indian captain of an oil tanker suspected of belonging to Russia’s sanctions-busting “shadow fleet” for the vessel failing to fly a flag, prosecutors said.

The 58-year-old captain was in charge of the tanker, the Grinch, which was seized by the French navy in the Mediterranean on Thursday and is now moored, under guard, at a southern French port near Marseille.

The Marseille prosecutors’ office, in charge of investigating the case, said the rest of the ship’s crewmembers – all also Indians – were being “kept on board”.

The Grinch is thought to be part of a fleet of mostly old tankers used to transport Russian oil in violation of a crude price cap imposed by Western countries and the G7 over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Vessels in that “shadow fleet” frequently change the flags they fly, in a practice known as “flag-hopping” and sometimes sail under invalid flags, in an attempt to escape detection and tracking.

The Grinch was escorted by the French navy on Saturday to the Gulf of Fos, in southern France.

It was anchored about 500 metres (1,600 feet) off the town of Martigues, an AFP photographer observed on Sunday. A French navy ship and two gendarmerie patrol boats were stationed nearby.

The local prefecture said nautical and air exclusion zones had been established around the anchorage site.

Sanctions

Some 598 vessels suspected of belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet are under European Union sanctions.

Authorities said the 249 metre long Grinch appeared under that name on a UK sanctions list of Russian shadow?fleet vessels, but as Carl on lists compiled by the EU and the United States.

The operation to intercept the vessel was the second of its kind in recent months.

France in late September detained a Russian-linked ship called the Boracay, a vessel claiming to be flagged in Benin, in a move Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned as “piracy”.

The Boracay’s Chinese captain is to stand trial in France in February.