French Navy seizes “shadow fleet” tanker near Sicily

PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative file photo — French military personnel are during a joint VBSS training exercise with U.S. Coast Guard personnel in the Caribbean Sea, Aug. 20, 2023. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Cmdr. Bryan Kent via U.S. Defense Visual Information Distribution Service - DVIDS)

PARIS  -  An oil tanker suspected of being part of Russia's "shadow fleet" was taken to waters near Marseille on Friday, a day after it was seized by France's navy near Sicily, local authorities said.

The vessel, the Deliver, is one of nine ships that have been seized across Europe since the start of 2026, all thought to have been used by Russia to evade Western sanctions on its oil trade. 

It was taken to the Gulf of Fos, the Bouches-du-Rhone Prefecture said. 

"It will be anchored and held at the disposal of the Marseille public prosecutor as part of the investigation into the alleged offense of sailing under a false flag," it added.

The Russian embassy in France on Thursday called the seizure "another case of piracy" and "illegal and unacceptable from the point of view of international law", the TASS news agency reported.   

A military source has said its was operating under a Cameroonian flag, despite having been formally struck off Cameroon's registry weeks earlier, meaning it was navigating without nationality and breaching international maritime law.

This enabled France to board and detain it, the source said.

 (Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Andrew Heavens // REUTERS)