Sweden Boards Third ‘Shadow Fleet’ Vessel

On Friday, April 3, the Swedish Coast Guard, in cooperation with the Swedish Police, boarded an EU-sanctioned vessel suspected of having caused an oil spill of 12 kilometers (8 miles) in the Baltic Sea, east of the island of Gotland.

The vessel, chemical tanker Flora 1, was, according to Marine Traffic, en route from Primorsk in Russia to Santos in Brazil, Swedish media DN reported. It is currently anchored outside Ystad, south of Sweden.

A prosecutor is leading a preliminary investigation into suspected environmental crimes. In connection with the detection, it was found that the ship is on the EU sanctions list and several unclear circumstances surround the vessel, including its flag status.

“The Russian shadow fleet, consisting of older, inadequately insured tankers that circumvent sanctions, poses a significant security and environmental threat. The government is taking the incident seriously,” Sweden’s Minister for Civil Defense, Carl-Oskar Bohlin wrote on X.

The vessel is surrounded by various uncertainties in addition to being suspected of an oil spill, according to Daniel Stenling, Deputy Head of Operations at the Coast Guard.

“Whether this entails further criminal suspicions will be revealed by the investigation,” he said.

The vessel is carrying oil and there are 24 crew members on board, the Swedish Coast Board stated.

It is a mixed Asian crew, according to DN, citing the Coast Guard’s press officer Mattias Lindholm, who also said that the vessel would remain outside the south coast of Sweden as long as there is a legal basis to detain it.

Flora 1 has had four names and seven flag changes since 2023, DN continued citing Equasis, an international database that collects data on merchant ships. Since 2025, the ship has been sailing under the flag of Sierra Leone. Before that, it was Benin and before that Palau, Djibouti, Panama, Gabon and Saint Christopher and Nevis. The registered owner is based in Hong Kong, China. The names have also changed from Electra to Rudra, Tasta and now Flora 1.

“The changes are a modus operandi that has become more common after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” the Coast Guard press officer told DN.

Primorsk, the port the ship reportedly had left before the oil spill, is one of Russia’s largest oil export hubs, located in the Gulf of Finland, Leningrad Oblast. The Primorsk oil terminal was hit several times in late March by Ukrainian drones, with the first attack on March 23.

On March 25, reports said that up to 40% of the oil export capacity of Russia had been taken offline following Ukrainian drone strikes, a disputed attack on a major pipeline, and seizures of tankers, according to Reuter calculations based on market data. In Primorsk, at least eight out of 18 storage tanks at the Transneft terminal have been damaged.

This is the third boarding in recent weeks by the Swedish Coast Guard. In early March, two ships were boarded off Trelleborg, both suspected of belonging to the Russian shadow fleet. On March 6, the cargo ship Caffa, sailing under Guinean flag, was boarded. On March 12, the Coast Guard then took control of the tanker Sea Owl I, which was sailing under the Comorian flag.

The captains of both ships have been detained on suspicion of violating maritime law and using false documents. They are still in custody.

It remains to be seen whether more suspicions may arise against the crew of Flora 1, according to the press officer at the Coast Guard.

“The investigation will show that. But it is the environmental crime that is the legal basis for initiating this operation,” he said.

The crime was committed in the Swedish economic zone, outside Swedish territory, but according to international agreements, the coastal state has the authority to intervene against and investigate, for example, environmental crimes and fishing crimes. In cases like this, the Coast Guard can order the vessel in question to proceed to Swedish territorial waters to anchor, which facilitates the investigation.