French court convicts Chinese captain of oil tanker linked to Russian shadow fleet

A French court on Monday issued an arrest warrant and a one-year prison sentence against the Chinese captain of a suspected Russian “shadow fleet” tanker over failing to comply with orders to stop his ship.Chen Zhangjie, 39, was sentenced in absentia after the French Navy boarded the Boracay tanker in September before releasing the vessel and its crew days later, in what Russian leader Vladimir Putin condemned as “piracy”.The court in the western city of Brest also ordered Chen to pay a €150,000 (US$172,000) fine.The vessel, claiming to be flagged in Benin, was thought to be part of a fleet transporting Russian oil in violation of Western sanctions imposed over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.Vessels in the “shadow fleet” frequently change the flags they fly, a practice known as “flag-hopping”, and sometimes sail under invalid flags in an attempt to escape detection and tracking.When the French Navy approached the ship in international waters off western France on September 27, it was thought to be transporting Russian oil to India, without a visible banner.