Shadow fleet captain said Russians on board were ‘security agents’ – POLITICO

The Boracay was boarded by French special forces last September while sailing in international waters off the coast of Saint-Nazaire, without a flag, the judge said. The ship was travelling from the Russian Port of Primorsk on the Baltic Sea, carrying approximately $100 million in Russian oil, according to the prosecutor.

Two men with Russian passports were on board “at the request of the shipping company,” according to statements from Chen read aloud in court. The captain said they were “security agents” and that he “didn’t know what they were doing on the ship.”

The two men were employed by Moran Security Group, a Russian private security company, with one of them having worked for the Wagner security group, AFP and CNN reported.

The Boracay was cruising off the coast of Denmark when drones were spotted near several of the country’s airports, leading Danish authorities to suspect it might have served as a launching pad in what Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described as a “hybrid attack.” No direct evidence of this was found during subsequent investigations into the Boracay, according to a French diplomat, who was granted anonymity as they are not authorized to speak publicly.

Shadow fleet tankers frequently use false flags or no flag at all, providing one of the main justifications for European maritime authorities to board them, as EU sanctions don’t apply in international waters.

When asked about his flag by the French Navy, Chen initially said he was flying the flag of Benin but had failed to wave it “because it was raining,” the judge said, reading Chen’s statements in court.