{"id":45464,"date":"2026-01-26T03:34:38","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T03:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/captain-of-suspected-russian-shadow-tanker-into-french-custody\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T03:34:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T03:34:38","slug":"captain-of-suspected-russian-shadow-tanker-into-french-custody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/captain-of-suspected-russian-shadow-tanker-into-french-custody\/","title":{"rendered":"Captain of suspected Russian shadow tanker into French custody"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"ReutersReuters<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Grinch was intercepted by the French navy on Thursday<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

French officials have taken the Indian captain of a suspected Russian shadow fleet tanker into custody days after the oil tanker was seized.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the French navy intercepted the tanker – named the Grinch – which President Emmanuel Macron said was “subject to international sanctions and suspected of flying a false flag”.<\/p>\n

The Grinch had been travelling through the Mediterranean Sea from the Russian Arctic port of Murmansk. It is now moored, under guard, at a southern French port near Marseille.<\/p>\n

Although Moscow is yet to comment, Macron said on Thursday that the shadow fleet helped to “finance Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The office of the Marseille prosecutor office said the rest of the ship’s crew members – all also Indians – were being “kept on board” while the 58-year-old captain was taken into custody.<\/p>\n

“The investigation aims to verify the validity of the flag used by the tanker,” prosecutors said. French media report say it was sailing under a Comoros Islands flag. <\/p>\n

Nautical and air exclusion zones have been established around the anchorage site, officials say.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"FrenchFrench Joint Staff of the Armed Forces<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Soldiers searched the vessel after it was seized in the Mediterranean<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

Announcing the seizure on Thursday<\/a>, Macron said: “We are determined to uphold international law and to ensure the effective enforcement of sanctions.”<\/p>\n

Many Western countries imposed sanctions on Russian energy following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n

Earlier in January, British armed forces supported a US operation to seize a Russian-flagged tanker in the Atlantic that US officials said had broken sanctions by carrying oil for Venezuela and Russia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Last October, France seized another sanctioned tanker, the Boracay<\/a>, off its west coast before releasing it a few days later.<\/p>\n

Shadow fleets are becoming increasingly common, with Venezuela, Iran and Russia all accused of using them to avoid sanctions on oil.<\/p>\n

Financial intelligence firm S&P Global estimates that one in five oil tankers worldwide are used to smuggle oil from sanctioned countries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reuters The Grinch was intercepted by the French navy on Thursday French officials have taken the Indian captain of a suspected Russian shadow fleet tanker into custody days after the oil tanker was seized. On Thursday, the French navy intercepted the tanker – named the Grinch – which President Emmanuel Macron said was “subject to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45466,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45464\/revisions\/45466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}