French Court Sentences Captain of Russia’s Boracay Shadow Fleet Tanker to Prison

A French criminal court has convicted the Chinese captain of a sanctioned Russian shadow fleet tanker for defying a naval inspection off the Brittany coast.

Refused to Comply With French Naval Boarding

The Brest criminal court on Monday sentenced Chen Zhangjie, 39, to one year in prison and fined him 150,000 euros for refusing to comply with orders when French naval forces attempted to board and inspect the 244-metre tanker Boracay on September 27, 2025, Le Figaro reports. Chen was absent during the verdict reading, and the court issued an arrest warrant against him.

The sentence matches prosecutors’ recommendations from the February 23 hearing. Deputy Prosecutor Gabriel Rollin stated that French military personnel faced “particular ill-will on the part of the captain”, forcing them to carry out “a dangerous manoeuvre that could have caused an accident.”

Sanctions, False Flag, and Russian Security Personnel on Board

Boracay was already under EU and British sanctions for its role in Russia’s shadow fleet, a network of over 600 tankers Moscow deploys to circumvent Western sanctions and the G7 oil price cap, when it was intercepted near the island of Ouessant without a visible flag, carrying Russian oil bound for India. It raised a false Beninese flag shortly before being boarded.

Two employees of a Russian private security company were found on board, tasked with monitoring the crew and gathering intelligence. The vessel was also suspected of involvement in drone overflights that disrupted Danish air traffic in September 2025. French President Emmanuel Macron described the crew’s conduct as “several very serious offences” at an EU summit in Copenhagen shortly after the boarding, though he declined to confirm the drone link, saying he would be “very careful” on the matter, European Pravda reports, citing AFP. That aspect of the case was not before the Brest court.

Defence Argues Jurisdictional Grounds

Chen Zhangjie’s lawyer, Henri de Richemont, argued for acquittal at the February hearing, contending that events in international waters fall outside French jurisdiction. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, known as the Montego Bay Convention, any such offence should be tried by the flag state’s courts, the defence argued. The court rejected that position.

The tanker has since been renamed Phoenix and now sails under a Russian flag.