Serious offenses have been committed by this crew, which justifies the legal process that was initiated today, said Emmanuel Macron according to Le Monde.
The French president, who spoke in connection with Wednesday's EU meeting in Copenhagen, emphasized, however, that the possible connection to the drone flights is not clarified.
The investigation concerns the Benin-flagged oil tanker Boracay, announced the prosecutor in Brest in western France earlier on Wednesday. Later, the Brest prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger told the news agency AFP that two crew members – the captain and the first mate – had been arrested.
The investigation was initiated after a report from the French navy.
Airports were forced to close
Sources to AFP have stated that the French navy boarded the vessel already on Saturday. And on Wednesday afternoon, French soldiers could be seen patrolling on board the tanker, reports the news agency's dispatched reporters.
The vessel, which is now anchored off the French port city of Saint-Nazaire, was located, according to data from the search site Vesselfinder, off the Danish coast between September 22 and 25, when several drone flights forced several airports to close and made Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen state that Denmark had been subjected to a hybrid war.
The tanker is suspected of being part of the Russian so-called shadow fleet – aged oil tankers that Russia uses to circumvent Western sanctions. It left the Russian Primorsk on September 20, then with the Indian Vadinar as the official destination.
Used as a platform?
The oil tanker – and several other vessels – may, according to the specialist site The Maritime Executive, have been used either as a launch platform for the drones or as bait.
The ongoing investigation is based on the crew's "inability to verify the vessel's nationality" and their refusal to cooperate, says Brest prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger to AFP.
