A tanker suspected of operating as part of Russia’s sanctions-busting “shadow fleet” is being escorted to the French port of Marseille-Fos on Saturday morning, sources close to the case said, a day after French forces boarded the vessel at sea.
French forces, with the help of allies, intercepted and boarded the oil tanker Grinch on Thursday, between Spain and Morocco, after it began its journey from Murmansk in Russia’s Arctic, the sources said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that the French Navy, backed by allies, had intercepted a vessel “subject to international sanctions” and suspected of flying a false flag.
A ship named Grinch is under UK sanctions, while another vessel called Carl with the same registration number is sanctioned by the United States and the European Union, according to the same information.
Ship-tracking websites MarineTraffic and VesselFinder indicated the ship was flying the flag of Comoros.
Images released by the French military showed masked soldiers boarding the Russia-linked vessel in an operation involving a navy boat and two navy helicopters.
The vessel is suspected of belonging to a so-called shadow fleet used to transport oil for countries including Russia and Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.
The boarding is the second such operation in recent months. France in late September detained a Russian-linked ship, the Boracay, which claimed to be flagged in Benin — a move Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced as “piracy”.
The Boracay’s Chinese captain is due to stand trial in France in February.
