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Caravella might abandon the Eagle S Sabotage and Spy ship [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-01-16
I predicted this as a possible end of the story. What makes it so unusual is that Caravella LLC FZ only has one ship. This would be abandoning their only asset, and, of course, the gasoline cargo.
Caravella's lawyer in Finland, Herman Ljundberg, said abandoning the ship is one possibility. This means he's talked to somebody, whoever the real owners are, about their options. Ljundberg has been trying to get the ship released, but the Finnish court has turned him down multiple times.
To recap the story, the Eagle S cut a power cable and 4 telecommunication cables on Christmas Day by dragging its anchor on the Baltic Sea floor for 60 miles. Finnish special forces boarded the ship by helicopter a short time after the cables were cut and the ship has been under Finnish control since. Found onboard the ship were communications equipment that could only be called spy gear. Also found were numerous laptop computers with Russian and Turkish keyboards. The captain is Georgian and the rest of the crew of 24 are a mix of Georgians and Indians. Now 9 crewmen have been banned from traveling from the ship, as ones suspected of being involved in the cable cutting incident. The anchor was broken off the chain and was found at the end of the drag marks that the anchor made. It weighs 11 tons and at last check was going through forensic examination to determine if it belongs to the Eagle S. It's kind of obvious, but the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation is being thorough.
Caravella is located, supposedly, in The Meydan Hotel in Dubai. The location is only listed as being on Floor M. No office number. Maybe because this hotel has no business office space, just business meeting rooms. It does say Business Center 1. There is no Business Center 1. Now you're confused. That's because it is confusing. It's a shell company hiding the true owners, who I think is Russia. If you don't believe me, here's their website for The Meydan Hotel's business facilities. There are no business offices.
The lawyer once again said that the Finnish authorities had "no jurisdiction" to board the tanker, as he has all along.
The Eagle S could have cut more cables had it not been stopped.
Head of the investigation into the incident, Risto Lohi, told Reuters that the ship was threatening to cut another power cable, Estlink 1, as well as the BalticConnector gas pipe between Finland and Estonia when it was seized.
The article actually says Estlink 2, instead of Estlink 1, but Estlink 2 was the first power cable cut already.
There's also more information on the Yi Peng 3 Chinese ship that is accused of cutting two fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea earlier in November. Anchor drag marks were found next to the Nordbalt power cable connecting Finland and Sweden.
In response to these incidents of damage to undersea cables, NATO has today launched Baltic Sentry, an operation designed to deter any further attempts by either states or non-state actors to damage underwater infrastructure. The Swedish Armed Forces said they would contribute up to three warships and maritime surveillance aircraft to the NATO presence in the Baltic Sea.
The lawyer for Caravella, Herman Ljungberg said abandoning the Eagle S was "one possible alternative."
He claimed finish authorities, had, "no jurisdiction whatsoever" to board the vessel and conduct investigations, citing the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 27.5, which says a coastal state cannot board a ship or investigate crimes that happened before it entered territorial waters, providing it came from a foreign port and is just passing through territorial water.
"Due to actions taken by the authorities, Eagle S entered Finland's territorial waters on its own. Officials boarded the vessel in Finnish territorial waters," the Helsinki Police Department said.
Ljungberg corroborated the account. "Since the vessel had nothing to hide, it obeyed the order." "The vessel did not want to see what had happened if it had not followed the order. In some jurisdictions, coastguards are well equipped with cannons."
When the ship was stopped, I'm sure that the Finnish Coast Guard had no idea whether the contents of the oil tanker was oil or gasoline. It's really a silly thought by the lawyer because hitting the tanker with "cannon" fire would create a environmental disaster no matter what it was carrying.
Ljungberg also believes the Finnish police have no jurisdiction over the anchor lifted from the seabed, as it was found in international waters and is allegedly not the property of a Finnish ship.
This recount is somewhat confusing. Since when does a lawyer have a call about jurisdiction? He's trying to say it's not the Eagle S anchor but the Finnish authorities can't use it against the Eagle S, or something like that. The reporting is confusing because they keep talking about the Estlink 2 cable like it was still operational. It's like they were translating from Finnish to English and it didn't work very well.
"The Coast Guard ordered the vessel to anchor (on an unsafe place with cables and rocks), after it had ordered the vessel to territorial waters." "The vessel said that it is not a safe place, but the Coast Guard insisted," Ljungberg said.
Ljungberg said the vessel offered to lower its pilot ladder, but the Finns insisted on arriving by helicopter.
"Entering a tanker loaded with flammable and explosive gasoline with a helicopter is extremely risky and there are rigorous safety protocols to be followed. None of the safety measures were followed."
Reuters has a story today that the Eagle S won't face a separate criminal investigation as to whether it's cargo of gasoline violates sanctions imposed on Russia. Because the ship entered Finnish waters voluntarily, the crewmen cannot be charged of intentionally violating the sanctions.
Sounds like they're calling it either a Russian ship or Russian cargo now, or both.
The Customs Office he believes the Eagle S is part of a shadow fleet of tankers used to circumvent sanctions on Russian oil and has impounded its cargo of unleaded petrol and diesel.
That's something new. I didn't know a tanker could carry more than one type of cargo.
The lawyer for Caravella accused the officers who boarded the ship with taking selfies and using their own electronic devices. Which shouldn't be done because the vessel contained a flammable and explosive cargo. Meaning there was risk of an ignition from using a cell phone? What about all that electronic spy gear and the laptop computers? Seeing as how there were 32 inspection defects that the port authorities found on the ship, and one of them was a major problem with their electrical system, which probably included shorting and sparking, the lawyer is just blowing steam.
The Finnish Border Guard said it would not comment on "one specific lawyer's allegations," citing the ongoing investigation.
Ljungberg it's starting to sound like one of Trump's lawyers.
He said he thought it was a "huge risk" to order a port state control inspection, which he said showed the ship to be in at least satisfactory condition. The results of the inspection undermine the allegations that the "dark fleet" is substandard.
32 deficiencies, according to shipping experts, is a record amount of violations. This ship is in anything but satisfactory condition. And why did he mention the "dark fleet"? If he really did say that, then he knows what the Russian dark fleet is, and he's saying that the Russians own the ship. Did he just give up the ghost?
"As a starting point, it is an insane idea to transport valuable cargoes in substandard vessels."
Yes, it is insane. But that's why they're using these ships, because they're so cheap. They're all substandard, rusting hulks. They can afford to lose one in a sabotage incident. That's why whoever really owns the ship, not the imaginary Caravella, has told him that abandoning the ship might be their best option to prevent exposure of their operations.
Once again, there is no information about the spy equipment or laptops. Someday the Finnish police might finally give us a clue about what's on the laptops and signals intelligence gear.
"Russian oil has been transported on the Baltic Sea for at least 30 years. Nothing's changed in the traffic pattern. Why the fuss now?" Ljungberg said.
Of course, a lawyer always says his client is innocent. But the facts of this case, the events of cable cutting, the anchor being found, the spy equipment, and the massive deficiencies in the ship's condition, only one thing is possible. It's owned by the Russians.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Finland had shown that firm action within the law was possible.
"Ship captains must understand that potential threats to our infrastructure will have consequences, including possible boarding, impounding, and arrest," Rutte said.
In the meantime, the Helsinki District Court has impounded the anchor until further notice, a decision Ljungberg is going to appeal.
I think the lawyer is making a big mistake. He's already said things, if we can believe the translations, that point to Russian ownership and a sanction busting operation. He needs to walk away from the whole case, because if he claims it's the Eagle S's anchor, he just confessed that the ship is responsible for the cable cutting.
Caravella consists of a single static webpage with an imaginary physical address.
I just found a second company at the exact same address. Just a static fill in form page with links to other pages with no information at all, and with no phone. But wait, there's still more.
Shaleeglobal, a service for choosing higher education, is supposedly on the 6th floor of the hotel. Numbers and letters for floors. Hmm.
Icons Consulting. Same address. M Floor, Business Center 1. There is a phone number and email.
Shopping with Oriel. There isn't even a home page.
Lazarus Shipping. Single static webpage. No contact, no phone, no email.
Mirsatori business services. Same address with a phone and email.
Still another called Metaplan.Same address, no phone or email.
Kesmaty business services, same address, with email and phone.
All of these sites have either static pages, or links to AI generated garbage, or links that don't work.
Meydan Management Services LLC FZ also is M Floor, Business Center 1. They're in a Dun and Bradstreet business directory, but to get anything, you have to pay for it. I'll bet there isn't any real info, and D&B is as ignorant as anyone else. Interesting that they've got the hotel's name in their name. But they have absolutely no other presence on the internet.
Bloomberg lists all the other facilities of The Meydan Hotel, including the racetrack next door, but absolutely nothing about the business services or any business center.
I think I've proved my point. Caravella doesn't exist. If they did, there would at least be a phone number or email.
Land line phone numbers are 8 digits in UAE, and cell phone numbers have 9. These sites I list above, all at the same address, have phone numbers with 9 digits, and they have 55 in the number, except for Shalee, which has 50. 50 and 55 are in all cell phone numbers in Dubai. So you're calling a cell phone.
It's also interesting that no news organizations have gone down the rabbit hole tracking down Caravella. All one did was say they called Peninsular Maritime India PVT, the ISM (International Safety Management) listed for the Eagle S at MagicPort, and somebody answered the phone at 4 a.m., India time, and were told they couldn't comment outside of business hours and that was that. No follow-up. Landline phone numbers in India are 7 or 8 digits long, and mobile numbers have 10, after the 91 country code. The Peninsular phone numbers have 10 digits. So, you're calling a guy's cell phone for a company that controls 8 ships, 300 crew members, 4 drydocks, and 4 global offices. You'll never find the other offices, the drydocks or anything else, but their webpage. This rating service says you don't want to have anything to do with them
Only the lawyer knows what's going on, or maybe he doesn't. Who is paying him, and who is he calling? Because Caravella doesn't have a phone number or email. Follow the money. But we can't just yet.
Here's the last previous story in this series with links to all the other stories.
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