PARIS — The Chinese captain of a suspected shadow fleet tanker was sentenced in absentia to one year in prison by a French court Monday.
The case underscores Paris and other European capitals’ mounting efforts to crack down on Russia’s covert network of mostly aging oil tankers used to circumvent sanctions imposed after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Zhangjie Chen, 39, was convicted of failing to comply with authorities after French special forces boarded the Boracay, a vessel found sailing without a flag in international waters off the coast of Saint-Nazaire last September. According to the prosecutor, the ship departed the Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Primorsk and was carrying approximately $100 million in Russian oil, as well as two Russian citizens who the captain identified as “security agents.”
After sentencing the captain to the maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine of €150,000, the court issued a warrant for his arrest. Chen was at sea at the time of his trial in February.
