France fines owner of Russian shadow fleet tanker Tagor €1 million

The owner of the Russian shadow fleet tanker Tagor, which was detained by the French military on May 31, has been fined €1 million.

Le Monde writes about this with reference to the prosecutor of Brest.

A sanctioned vessel that left Murmansk was detained in the Atlantic Ocean, 740 kilometers from the coast. The owner was fined because the tanker was flying a false flag of Cameroon, and the Russian captain refused to comply with the demands of the French military, which forced the ship to be taken under control by force.

The owner company has already paid the fine and has undertaken to obtain a new legal flag of the country of registration as soon as possible. Thus, the vessel was allowed to leave French territorial waters.

Before that, the ship had repeatedly changed its "disguise" — it used the flags of Madagascar, the Marshall Islands, and Panama.

In addition to Russian interest, there is also an Iranian trace in this case — according to Le Monde analysts, Tagor is likely connected to the family of influential Iranian official Ali Shamkhani.

• The Tagor became the fourth Russian tanker that France has intercepted in less than a year. And on June 23, the French military detained another, already the fifth, sanctioned tanker of the Russian shadow fleet in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Sicily. The Deliver vessel still remains in custody in the French port of Marseille.

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