France arrests Russian captain of seized shadow-fleet tanker Tagor
French authorities arrested the Russian captain of the Tagor, the sanctioned oil tanker boarded by the French Navy in the Atlantic with British support, Brest prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger said Wednesday. The captain faces up to one year in prison and a 150,000-euro ($174,000) fine, and the shipowner, still being identified, may face the same penalties. The vessel, sailing from Murmansk toward Limbe, Cameroon, under a false Cameroonian flag, is linked to Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, son of the late Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani.
French authorities have taken into custody the Russian captain of the Tagor, the sanctioned oil tanker boarded by the French Navy in the Atlantic, Brest prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger announced on Wednesday. The captain, arrested on Tuesday, faces up to one year in prison and a 150,000-euro ($174,000) fine.
The French Navy detained the Tagor on Sunday in international waters with British support, on suspicion that the ship was flying a false flag after its captain refused to comply with orders. The vessel had sailed from Murmansk in northwestern Russia and was falsely flying a Cameroonian flag, heading toward Limbe, a seaside city in western Cameroon, according to French authorities.
The shipowner, currently being identified, may be subject to the same penalties as the captain, Kellenberger said.
The Tagor is suspected of carrying Russian or Iranian oil despite international sanctions. According to the open-source database Opensanctions.org, the vessel is linked to petroleum shipping magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani — son of Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Both men were killed on February 28, the first day of the US-Israeli attacks that started the Middle East war.
The arrest caps a sequence that began with the May 31 boarding some 400 nautical miles west of Brittany — announced by President Emmanuel Macron with video of commandos rappelling onto the deck from helicopters — and that prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on June 1 to urge the EU to allow outright seizure, not just interception, of shadow-fleet vessels.