Further to our earlier post, the owner of the “shadow fleet” vessel the MV Deyna, agreed in a Marseilles Court on Wednesday to pay an undisclosed fine for the release of the vessel.
The owner admitted that it had no evidence to support the vessel’s alleged Mozambique flag status.
Upon payment the vessel was released and is now reported to have left French waters.
On Friday 3 April, the Swedish Coast Guard boarded and seized control of the sanctioned “shadow fleet” tanker the Flora 1. The vessel is suspected of having caused a 12 km (8 mile) oil spill in the Baltic Sea near the island of Gotland.
The vessel was then anchored off Ystad.
The Coast Guard’s press release states that the vessel’s flag status is uncertain, and states that “this is the first time we have been able to trace a discharge to a vessel subject to sanctions, and which may be suspected of environmental crimes”.
We have updated our vessel seizure tracker.
The vessel has since been released, with the Coast Guard citing a lack of evidence linking the vessel to the oil spill, and that the Coast Guard had been able to confirm the flag status of the vessel.
Further to our earlier post, it is now being reported that the Bulgarian authorities have extradited Russian national Oleg Olshansky to face charges of breaching the US’s Russian sanctions and money laundering.
Mr Olshansky had appealed an earlier decision approving his extradition.
Mr Olshansky and another Russian national extradited from Bulgaria, Mr Sergey Ivin have now been charged by the US authorities.
German Customs has issued a press release announcing raids as part of investigations into the suspected Russian exports by three separate companies. A total of 14 residential and commercial properties were raided in the Rhine-Main area.
The press release states that the investigations first arose out of a routine Customs audit:
“there is a suspicion that two of the companies have commercially exported various machine parts and chemical substances to Russia in violation of an existing ban. To this end, they allegedly used a transport company and other foreign logistics service providers to sell or export sanctioned goods from the Rhine-Main region to the Russian Federation without authorisation by means of so-called circumvention exports via neighbouring states”.
The actions of the third company are not specified.
Further to our earlier post relating to the trial of the captain of the Boracay, the shadow fleet vessel seized by France in October 2025.
The trial has concluded with the Chinese national captain, Chen Zhangjie, sentenced to a year’s jail and ordered to pay a fine of €150,000.
As the captain was tried in absentia, the French authorities have issued an arrest warrant for him.
The offence that was the basis of the conviction was for failing to stop the Boracay when ordered to do so.
Sweden’s Public Prosecutor has issued a press release making public raids conducted this morning at the premises of an unnamed “large company” in Sundsvall.
Two unnamed “people in senior positions” have also been arrested on suspicion of aggravated sanctions violations.
The press release does not include information on the suspected breaches.
Given the web links to information on Sweden’s Russian sanctions included in the press release, the investigation is very likely to relate to suspected breaches of the EU’s Russian sanctions.
Finland’s Customs has issued a press release relating to a criminal investigation into the alleged export of 135 trucks and 29 trailers to Russia from Finland in 2022 and 2023.
It is alleged that the destination of the exports was Kazakhstan or Turkey with Russia only as used for transit, but that the vehicles remained in Russia. The vehicles are valued at €17m.
One individual, the owner of the company, has been detained pending further investigation on suspicion of an aggravated sanctions offence, and two employees are also suspects.
Finland’s Customs does not name the company involved, but press reporting has suggested it is Idän Liikennevälitys IL oy from Lappeenranta.
Customs also state that this case is part of a larger investigation into the export of 558 trucks and 45 trailers to Russia valued at €79m.
The same Customs press release states the during 2025 Customs identified 43 sanctions offences of which 17 were classed as “aggravated”.
On Friday the French authorities, with British Royal Navy support, boarded and seized the tanker the MV Deyna which was sailing from Murmansk to Port Said. It was off the coast of Algeria in the western Mediterranean at the time of the boarding.
The MV Deyna is a designated vessel under the EU’s Russian sanctions and a specified ship under the UK’s Russian sanctions.
The vessel is registered in Mozambique and said to be carrying Russian crude.
According to data from Vesselfinder.com the tanker is now off the southern coast of France at Fos-sur-Mer.
The same website indicates that it left its last port on 1 March. If this date is right, and the vessel was carrying Russian crude, then it would have been benefitting from the US sanctions waiver for Russian crude that was “on the water” as of 12 March at the time that it was seized.
This serves as a reminder, if one were needed, of the complexities of navigating the interlocking and overlapping sanctions regimes that are in place.
Further to our earlier post, following raids in November 2025, the German authorities have issued a press release reporting on the charging of a 57-year old from Dessau-Rosslau, with exporting €7.6m worth of luxury cars to Russia in breach of EU sanctions.
It is alleged that he has been responsible for the export of 236 cars, and is facing 154 charges.
The Latvia Prosecutor’s office has secured a conviction and 11-year jail term against an Azerbaijani national.
Three other defendants (including two Latvian nationals) are to be tried separately.
The man was convicted for his role in exporting dozens of Starlink Mini Kits to the Russian military, as well as “other goods used for military activities, including weapons parts, cartridge shells, bullets, ballistic weather meters, in total worth about 200, 000 euros”.
As well as sanctions offences the man was convicted of being part of an organised group to assist a foreign state in undermining the territorial integrity and independence of a democratic state.
In addition to the 11-year jail term, upon release he will be expelled from Latvia and be subject to a 5-year ban on re-entry.
This is the longest known sentence for breach of the EU’s Russian sanctions.
