French authorities have taken into custody the Russian captain of a seized oil tanker believed to be part of Moscow's "shadow fleet", a prosecutor said Wednesday. The French navy detained the Tagor on Sunday in international waters with British help on suspicion the ship was flying a false flag and after its captain refused to comply with orders. It is the fourth ship that France has seized since September on suspicion of belonging to the "shadow fleet", which Russia is accused of using to circumvent Western sanctions. The tanker arrived in a harbor in Brittany on Tuesday. The captain was arrested on Tuesday and faces up to one year in prison and a 150,000-euro ($174,000) fine, said the prosecutor in the northwestern city of Brest, Stephane Kellenberger. The owner of the vessel, currently being identified, may be subject to the same penalties, he added. The Russian embassy in France said it had demanded "consular access be granted to the captain immediately", in a post on Telegram. It rejected what it called "baseless accusations" and urging the captain to be released "as soon as possible". The Kremlin has likened the seizure to "international piracy". The Tagor is suspected of carrying Russian or Iranian oil despite international sanctions. It is linked to shipping magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, according to open-source database Opensanctions.org. Shamkhani is the son of Ali Shamkhani, who was a security adviser to the former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. They were both killed on February 28, the first day of the US-Israeli attacks that started the Middle East war. According to French authorities, the Tagor was on its way from Murmansk in northwestern Russia when it was boarded. It was falsely flying a Cameroonian flag and was heading toward Limbe, a seaside city in the west of the African country, they added. France previously detained two tankers in the Mediterranean, the Deyna in March and the Grinch in January, but they were freed after paying fines. In another case, a French court in March issued a one-year jail sentence in absentia and a 150,000-euro ($177,000) fine against the Chinese captain of a tanker, the Boracay, for failing to comply with orders to stop in September last year off the coast of Brittany. Several Western countries have imposed sanctions on hundreds of vessels believed to be part of Russia's "shadow fleet" over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Nearly 600 ships suspected of belonging to the fleet are subject to European Union sanctions.
