France Takes Captain of Seized Shadow Fleet Tanker Into Custody in Escalation of Russian Sanctions Enforcement

France is now holding the Indian captain of an oil tanker intercepted in the Mediterranean Sea days earlier as European countries could be reacting to Ukraine’s plea for a crackdown on ships suspected of violating sanctions against Russia.Maritime Gendarmerie’s Investigation Unit said the Grinch was initially stopped on January 22 on suspicion of flying a false flag.The tanker had previously been ported in northwestern Russia and was believed to be carrying a cargo of Russian oil. The ship — claiming to be flying under the flag of the Comoros Islands — is suspected of being part of a sanctioned Russian “shadow fleet.”The United States Department of the Treasury added the vessel to its sanctions list a year ago and the European Union and other countries later sanctioned the ship.The French Navy intercepted the tanker and said the United Kingdom helped carry out the operation. The ship is now moored at a French port near Marseille.The Maritime Gendarmerie’s Investigation Unit said documents onboard the ship confirmed doubts regarding its flag and the case was handed over to the Public Prosecutor of Marseille.The prosecutor’s office said the ship’s crew members — also Indians — were being “kept on board,” the BBC reported.“The activities of the shadow fleet contribute to financing the war of aggression against Ukraine,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said in an X post when the ship was first seized.That fleet — also known as a ghost fleet — is made up of more than a thousand unregistered tankers that carry embargoed oil from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela around the globe. S&P Global estimates that in 2025, 17 percent of tankers around the globe were part of the fleet attempting to avoid sanctions.Many Western countries have sanctions on the Russian oil industry due to the nearly four year old invasion of Ukraine. Some European countries have boarded suspicious vessels in the past few months, the Atlantic Council reports, but did not permanently seize any of them.President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed frustration about the lack of action on the shadow fleet during a speech at the World Economic Forum last week.“Why can President Trump stop tankers from the shadow fleet and seize oil, but Europe doesn’t,” Mr. Zelensky asked. “Russian oil is being transported right along European shores.”Mr. Zelensky is now thanking Mr. Macron for the seizure of the Grinch. “This is exactly the kind of resolve needed to ensure that Russian oil no longer finances Russia’s war,” Mr. Zelensky said in an X post.“Russian tankers operating near European shores must be stopped. Sanctions against the entire infrastructure of the shadow fleet must be tough,” Mr. Zelensky added.Foreign Minster Johann Wadephul of Germany is calling for urgent reformation of international maritime law to make action against the shadow fleet easier to carry out.“We must now use all the possibilities offered by maritime law to stop such ships,” Mr. Wadephul said. He added, during a visit to Latvia on Monday.Mr. Wadephul says that nations bordering the Baltic Sea need to expand cooperation to act against the vessels, the German press agency DPA reported.American forces have recently seized at least six ships in the waters off of Venezuela that were believed to be part of the shadow fleet.One of the seizures was a tanker that claimed to be Russian-flagged. American forces had been tracking a tanker known as the Bella 1 for more than a week when the crew suddenly painted a Russian flag on the hull and the ship appeared in a Russian registry as the Marinera.Russia criticized that seizure and the Trump administration handed over two Russian crew members from the ship.

France Takes Captain of Seized Shadow Fleet Tanker Into Custody in Escalation of Russian Sanctions Enforcement

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