New Delhi: The Indian captain of an oil tanker intercepted by the French navy has been detained for an investigation into whether it was operating under a false flag, the Marseille prosecutor’s office said on Sunday.
‘Grinch’, the oil tanker, was seized in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday and diverted to anchor off the French port city of Marseille, as it was suspected to be part of the shadow fleet that lets Russia export oil despite sanctions, Reuters reported.
The Indian captain, aged 58, was detained as part of preliminary investigations, the prosecutors said. Their statement, though, did not mention Russia.
The oil tanker, sailing under a Comoros flag, had left Russia’s port of Murmansk in early January.
Other crew members, many of them Indian nationals, remain on board the ship while investigators verify the validity of the flag and the vessel’s navigation documents, the statement added.
The European Union has imposed 19 packages of sanctions against Russia, but Moscow has found a way to dodge most of these measures as it continues to sell millions of barrels of oil to countries like India and China at discounted prices.
Much of the oil is carried by what is known as a shadow fleet of vessels operating outside of the Western maritime industry.
In October, France had detained another tanker, the Boracay, off its west coast and released it after a few days.
