The Daily Populous Sunday December 29th, 2024 morning edition
Authored by lloydslist.com and submitted by barweis

RUSSIA-LINKED dark fleet* tanker Eagle S (IMO: 9329760), seized by Finland on December 25 for damaging an undersea cable, had transmitting and receiving devices installed that effectively allowed it to become a “spy ship” for Russia, Lloyd’s List has learnt.

The hi-tech equipment on board was abnormal for a merchant ship and consumed more power from the ship’s generator, leading to repeated blackouts, a source familiar with the vessel who provided commercial maritime services to it as recently as seven months ago.

Finland police seize Russian-linked dark fleet tanker Eagle S in cable-cutting investigation Cook Islands tanker suspected of damaging Estlink 2 cable and possible other damage by police investigating aggravated vandalism on the undersea infrastructure Read the full article here

As well as Eagle S, another related tanker from the same ownership cluster, UK-sanctioned Swiftsea Rider (IMO: 9318539), also had similar equipment installed, Lloyd’s List was told.

Cook Islands-flagged Eagle S and Honduras-flagged Swiftsea Rider are two of 26 elderly Russia-linked tankers with opaque ownership structures connected to three related shipmanagers, including two sanctioned by the UK government 12 months ago for “propping up Putin’s war machine”.

The sanctions-circumventing tankers were bought between 2022 and 2023 and placed under bareboat charter arrangements with Eiger Shipping, the shipping arm of Russia oil trader Litasco.

Eagle S was boarded by Finnish forces investigating sabotage of the Estlink 2 undersea cable that disrupted the supply of electricity to Estonia from Finland.

The tanker slowed and dragged its anchor around the cable around midday, December 25, Finland’s police said. Another three cables were also damaged.

The source, who declined to be identified to protect their safety, supplied at least 60 confidential documents about Eagle S to Lloyd’s List in June, including the vetting report that outlined many safety deficiencies discovered during an inspection undertaken while at anchor in Danish waters that month.

These documents, and others relating to dark fleet tankers providing confidential and private information about class, insurance, and flag, and other technical and regulatory requirements, were verified as genuine at the time.

In July, Lloyd’s List reported the serious deficiencies on Eagle S that compromised environmental and crew safety, and underscored the poor maintenance and absence of adherence to regulatory and technical standards for the wider dark fleet.

The source has since provided additional information, telling Lloyd’s List that an unauthorised person, who was not a seafarer, had been identified on board Eagle S.

They said listening and recording equipment was brought on to the 20-year-old tanker via “huge portable suitcases” along with “many laptops” that had keyboards for Turkish and Russian languages when calling at Türkiye and Russia.

The equipment was kept on the bridge or in the “monkey island”, they said. The monkey island is the top-most place on the ship.

The transmitting and receiving devices were used to record all radio frequencies, and upon reaching Russia were offloaded for analysis.

“They were monitoring all Nato naval ships and aircraft,” Lloyd’s List was told.

“They had all details on them. They were just matching their frequencies.

“Russians, Turkish, Indian radio officers were operating it.”

Eagle S also dropped “sensors-type devices” in the English Channel during a transit, they said.

They said no further equipment returned to the ship after it was offloaded for analysis, to their knowledge, but other devices were placed on another related tanker, Swiftsea Rider.

Claims that Russian-linked merchant ships are being used for spying and sabotage activities in the Baltic Sea where Russia is surrounded by Nato allies underscores the rising geopolitical tension in the region amid calls by European political leaders for increased maritime infrastructure defence.

The damage to the Estlink 2 cable is the second time vital undersea cables between Nato allies have been damaged in two months, and the first time a commercial ship suspected of sabotage has been taken into custody by authorities.

In November, China-flagged bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 (IMO: 9224984) was accused of dragging anchor to damage the C-Lion 1 communication cable connecting Finland and Germany.

The bulk carrier spent more than four weeks in international waters in the Danish straits as German, Sweden, Danish and Finnish officials investigated but ended up sailing last Saturday.

The crew on Eagle S would have been aware of its spying activities “as this could not be hidden” but were “threatened with their life, so everybody kept quiet”, the source said.

“They have replaced captains when they raised this issue,” they said.

The beneficial owners of Eagle S and Swiftsea Rider are hidden behind complex corporate structures. The registered owner of Eagle S is a single-ship structure that purports to have an office in the business centre of a luxury hotel in Dubai.

The shipmanager, Mumbai-based Peninsular Maritime India Private Limited cannot be contacted. One of the telephone numbers on its website did not answer. A second number hung up when asked if this was the phone number for Peninsular Maritime. Emails were not answered.

The company’s website claims the company be registered in England, signalling it is likely a copy-and-paste of a template, commonly found in dark fleet shipping companies.

* Lloyd’s List defines a tanker as part of the dark fleet if it is aged 15 years or over, anonymously owned and/or has a corporate structure designed to obfuscate beneficial ownership discovery, solely deployed in sanctioned oil trades, and engaged in one or more of the deceptive shipping practices outlined in US State Department guidance issued in May 2020. The figures exclude tankers tracked to government-controlled shipping entities such as Russia’s Sovcomflot, or Iran’s National Iranian Tanker Co, and those already sanctioned.

Download our explainer on the different risk profiles of the dark fleet here

Magicalsandwichpress on December 29th, 2024 at 06:24 UTC »

If Finland is seizing Russian vessels, why haven't Sweden done so with Chinese bulk carried impounded in the great belt. Surely, the same internal law applies.

Gimme_Your_Wallet on December 29th, 2024 at 03:49 UTC »

This stuff has been going on for years. There's a good and short podcast about a journalistic team tracking Russian black ops vessels in the Baltic sea related to the Nordstream 2 sabotage: "Cold Front".

Before the tankies jump at my throat, no they don't accuse Russia of doing it, they just note their presence at the coords and time of the sabotage.