Ukraine seizes ship smuggling grains from occupied Crimea,- officials

Source: SBU

The Security Service of Ukraine, SBU, said on Thursday it had detained a cargo ship flying the flag of  a “Central African country” after investigation found it was transporting Ukrainian grain from Russian-occupied Crimea.

According to the SBU statement, the ship had repeatedly came to Sevastopol for “aricultural products stolen from occupied Ukrainian territories”, which were later  shipped to the Middle East, with the proceeds going to Russia.

The ship’s captain allegedly used the illegal practice of turning off the GPS tracker and falsified entries in the ship’s logbook on its routes and docking locations. These tricks helped the captain to smuggle “thousands of tons of grain from southern Ukraine’s occupied territories”.

The captain, a “North Caucasian country” national, led a crew of 12 other foreign nationals. During the raid, the SBU operative found documents, navigation tools, and other evidence of their criminal activities.

Now the captain is facing charges under Art. 332-1 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code – it s “violation of the procedure for entering and leaving the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine”. If found guilty, the captain faces up to 5 years in prison.

Meanwhile, the court order allowed to arrest the ship and tow it to Odesa.