The Swedish coast guard announced this Sunday, March 8, the arrest of a cargo ship crew member suspected of belonging to the Russian ghost fleet and transporting stolen Ukrainian cereals, intercepted on Friday by the Swedish police.
The Caffa, a 96-metre ship, had left Casablanca, Morocco, on February 24 and was heading to St Petersburg, Russia, when Swedish police boarded off Trelleborg, in the southern part of Sweden.
The Swedish coast guard indicated that the cargo ship was on the sanctions list related to the war in Ukraine and that it was sailing under a false Guinean flag.
“The checks carried out led to the arrest and disembarkation of a crew member”, declared the coast guard in a statement, noting that it was a person “suspected of violations of the maritime code and the law on ship safety, as well as the use of false documents, an aggravated crime”.
Judicial entities opened a preliminary investigation, with the coast guard maintaining investigations on board the ship.
The Russian embassy in Stockholm said on Saturday it had been informed by the Swedish coast guard that 10 crew members were Russian citizens.
The Swedish coast guard considers that Caffa has “serious deficiencies” in its operation.
“Our mission is to enforce regulations at sea. We will take action against ships that violate them and put security in our maritime zone at risk,” the coast guard’s chief of operations, Daniel Stenling, said in the statement.
The Swedish Transport Agency must inspect the ship and determine whether it is seaworthy and authorized to continue its voyage.
Moscow’s “ghost fleet” is made up of ships often in disrepair, uninsured and whose ownership is opaque, which are used to circumvent Western sanctions.
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