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Swedish Authorities Issue Arrest Warrant for Russian Commander of Cargo Vessel Caffa
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Swedish authorities are searching for the commander of the Russian cargo vessel Caffa, which was boarded near Trelleborg on March 6. The commander is being sought for arrest on suspicion of using forged documents, a serious offense.
Senior prosecutor Adrien Combé-Hogg submitted an arrest warrant to the district court in Ystad, according to SVT on March 10.
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“The man is suspected of presenting and referring to several suspicious fake maritime certificates when the coast guard searched the vessel,” the prosecutor stated earlier in a press release.
The commander, a Russian national, was arrested last Saturday.
After an inspection on board, the Swedish Transport Agency issued an international ban on the vessel's use on Sunday. This means that the ship is prohibited from leaving its anchorage until a number of deficiencies are addressed.
On March 6, Swedish authorities detained the cargo vessel Caffa in the Baltic Sea after it was suspected of transporting grain stolen from Ukrainian territories under Russian occupation.
The interception occurred near the southern Swedish city of Trelleborg, during a coordinated operation involving Swedish police special forces, aviation units, and the national coast guard.
Members of the elite police unit Nationella insatsstyrkan boarded the ship as part of an operation called “Svart kaffe.”
The Caffa had previously been added to Ukraine’s sanctions list, following Ukrainian intelligence reports linking the vessel to the transportation of agricultural products loaded in the temporarily occupied Sevastopol in July 2025, according to the report.
Sweden’s Minister for Civil Defense, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, confirmed that the ship had attempted to disguise its origin by changing its flag. Bohlin stated that the Caffa replaced its Russian flag with a Guinean one during the summer, likely in an effort to conceal its activities. At the time of the interception, the ship was reportedly en route from Casablanca to St. Petersburg.
“The Swedish state has the right to intervene in this case against a vessel whose flag is extremely unclear, and we believe it was registered under a false flag,” said Matthias Lindholm, spokesperson for the Coast Guard, according to SVT
Earlier, the Belgian Armed Forces, with support from French naval assets, successfully intercepted and boarded a Russian oil tanker from the shadow fleet in the North Sea.
The operation, named "Blue Intruder," represents Belgium's first use of military force to seize a vessel engaged in bypassing international sanctions against Russia.
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