FINNISH police have lifted the seizure order on the dark fleet* tanker accused of damaging an undersea cable off the Finnish coast on in late December.

Cook Islands-flagged Eagle S (IMO: 9329760), which is on the Lloyd’s List Intelligence dark fleet watchlist, was detained by both the Finnish police and a Helsinki court, after it was accused of damaging the Estlink2 cable off the Finnish coast on December 25, 2024.

Finnish police said the investigation into the incident had reached a stage where “there is no basis for continuing the seizure of the vessel”. Eagle S left anchorage off near Helsinki at around 0745 hrs on March 2.

Travel bans remain in place for three people, police confirmed, who will not be allowed to leave Finland.

The offences being investigated include aggravated vandalism and aggravated interference with communications.

The investigation will continue with “detailed interrogations of the crew and a review of the obtained material”, police said. The preliminary investigation is set to be completed by the end of April.

The tanker has been allowed to leave Finland after it cleared other regulatory hurdles. Eagle S was detained by the Finnish department of transport (Traficom) after a port state control inspection found 32 deficiencies in January.

Traficom director of maritime affairs Sanna Sonninen said inspectors had visited Eagle S and found the deficiencies that led to its detention, namely concerns with the tanker’s fire safety, navigation equipment and pump room ventilation, had been corrected.

Co-operation with the tanker’s crew, classification society and the Cook Islands flag had been “excellent”, Sonninen said.

Alongside the police investigation and port state detention, Finnish customs had detained the tanker’s cargo of unleaded petrol and diesel as they were subject to Russian sanctions.

But Finnish Customs director of supervision Petri Lounatmaa confirmed there had been no import or transfer of the cargo, and so the detention would be lifted as soon as Eagle S left Finnish waters.

Herman Ljungberg, who is representing the Dubai-based owner of Eagle S, Caravella LLC-FZ, said his client was not suspected of any crime.

He compared the case of Eagle S to that of Malta-flagged bulk carrier Vezhen (IMO: 9937270), which also damaged undersea cables last month. Swedish authorities concluded that bad weather was behind that particular incident, rather than deliberate sabotage.

Ljungberg said it took Swedish authorities “only a week to understand that they did not have jurisdiction” to investigate an incident that occurred in international waters, whereas “Finland investigated our vessel and her crew in and out for two months”.

But the Helsinki Police Department, which is leading the investigation, told Lloyd’s List that Eagle S was boarded in Finnish waters. Ljungberg confirmed the vessel obeyed an order to enter Finland’s territorial waters.

Eagle S is currently in the Baltic Sea, just off Gotland, Sweden, and is headed for Port Said, Egypt.

* Lloyd’s List defines a tanker as part of the dark fleet if it is aged 15 years or over, anonymously owned and/or has a corporate structure designed to obfuscate beneficial ownership discovery, solely deployed in sanctioned oil trades, and engaged in one or more of the deceptive shipping practices outlined in US State Department guidance issued in May 2020. The figures exclude tankers tracked to government-controlled shipping entities such as Russia’s Sovcomflot, or Iran’s National Iranian Tanker Co, and those already sanctioned.