The seizure of the Russian-owned Arctic Sea timber carrier was ordered by an Estonian construction and oil services contractor. He hoped to bolster his failing business Somali-style, by extorting a ransom.You know, that makes more sense then the rumors that the ship carrying a secret cargo of missiles, space aliens or whatever....
A follow-on to the tale of what may have been, after all, Baltic piracy in "Lost"cargo ship Arctic Sea gives up its secrets:The gunmen demanded a ransom and threatened to execute the crew if security services were alerted. But crewmen’s families and the shipowner appealed to President Dmitry Medvedev, who ordered the navy into action. The guided-missile frigate Ladny was sent to track down the Arctic Sea .Interesting reading and perhaps has most of the story, though the author of the piece still seems to have some lingering doubts.
The response fuelled reports that the ship was carrying a secret cargo. Suspicion mounted when sources close to Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, claimed that Israel had tipped off Russia that the vessel was smuggling missiles to Iran .
It began as a curio item on an obscure maritime website and grew into the mystery of the summer. What exactly happened to the Arctic Sea, the enigmatic cargo ship allegedly seized by pirates, not off the wild coast of Somalia but in the genteel EU waters of the Baltic?Good question, not much help with the answer.
Fresh mystery surrounded the destination of the Arctic Sea, allegedly hijacked for weeks by pirates, on Tuesday after Russia said it is no longer trying to dock the ship in Spain's Canary Islands. Russia's embassy in Madrid and Spain's foreign ministry told AFP that Russian authorities had withdrawn their request for permission to dock at Las Palmas and did not know where the Maltese-flagged vessel is heading. The request was formally withdrawn on Friday, a Spanish diplomat said, the same day that Russian investigators unloaded evidence from the Arctic Sea onto a Russian warship to be taken to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk.For those of you unfamilir with the MV Arctic Sea, see here and here and - well, just click on the "MV Arctic Sea" label below . . .
Trying to quash persistent newspaper and internet rumors, Russia tries to prove a negative. Reported as Russia denies Arctic Sea carried missiles to Iran:Russia on Tuesday vehemently denied that a cargo ship whose supposed seizure by pirates sparked an international mystery was carrying sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft missiles bound for Iran.If the rumors are true, I guess the next question is whether the Russian government has control of its arms shipments. Which, of course, if the the stories are true appears not to be the case.
A British newspaper reported at the weekend that the Arctic Sea had been carrying a batch of S-300 missiles, as conspiracy theories swirl over the ship's mysterious disappearance and reappearance.
"Regarding the S-300s on board the Arctic Sea, this is absolutely untrue," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters, when asked if the ship was secretly carrying the advanced Russian-made missiles to Iran.
The Arctic Sea, a Maltese-flagged vessel with a Russian crew, was hijacked near Sweden in late July before it was recovered by the Russian navy in the Atlantic Ocean several weeks later.
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Lavrov said representatives of Malta, the flag government of the Arctic Sea, would be invited to take part in the inspection.
"Everything will be done transparently. I hope everyone will be convinced that the rumours you are referring to are absolutely groundless," Lavrov said in response to the reporter's question.
This weekend the Sunday Times of London, citing Russian and Israeli sources, reported that Israel's Mossad intelligence service had learned the ship was carrying S-300s to Iran and worked with Moscow to stop the shipment.
Deputy Head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in Iran's Majlis Ismail Kowsari said Sunday that Tehran has reached an agreement with Moscow on the delivery of the advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile system after years of negotiations.Of course, that "100 ballistic missiles and aircraft at once" part assumes you have 100 missiles to shoot and they all work correctly.
""The missile system would be used to enhance Iran's defense capabilities and to protect the country's sovereignty,"" Kowsari told IRNA.
The confirmation came after Haaretz reported on Tuesday that Israel would send the head of political military policy in the Israeli Defense Ministry, Major General Amos Gilad, to press the Kremlin not to supply Iran with S-300 missile defense systems.
The Iranian official responded, however, that Israeli reactions to Tehran-Moscow military cooperation would not affect the deal.
Later on Wednesday, Russia announced that it is fulfilling the controversial deal and would deliver the anti-aircraft system to Iran.
""Moscow has earlier met its obligations on supplying Tor-M1 systems to Iran and is currently implementing a contract to deliver S-300 systems,"" RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed Russian source as saying.
Western countries have criticized Russian sales of defensive military equipment to Iran, saying that such deals have sabotaged efforts to retard Iranian nuclear progress.
The advance version of the S-300 system, the S-300PMU1 (SA-20 Gargoyle), can intercept 100 ballistic missiles and aircraft at once, at low and high altitudes within a range of over 150 kilometers.
According to intelligence officials familiar with the defense capabilities of the S-300, the missile system would effectively rule out an Israeli war against Iran.
Like one of those Russian matryoshka nesting dolls where each doll contains another doll, the MV Arctic Sea saga keeps giving and giving. After a report yesterday that a Russian editor reporting on the affair had fled Russia under a threat (see here) because of his reporting on the story, a new report now suggests that reports of that journalist fleeing are, well, not quite correct see here for this Fairplay article:A REPORT today claimed that a journalist tied to the Arctic Sea affair has fled Russia because of threats – but that account could be a hoax, Fairplay has been told.I'm sure there will be more later.
The Moscow Times reported that Sovfrakht Maritime Bulletin journalist Mikhail Voitenko had been threatened over his coverage of the ship’s disappearance.
But Sovfrakht spokeswoman Anastasia Plovskaya told Fairplay that Voitenko is in Turkey on business; she said she had spoken to him today, and he denied comments attributed to him by the Times.
Voitenko did not respond today to telephone and email ...
A Russian journalist leaves Russia after breaking a story about the MV Arctic Sea (click on MV Arctic Sea label below for all posts on the ship): A journalist who broke the story of a Russian cargo ship apparently hijacked by pirates announced he had fled Russia, fearing for his life.His trouble, of course, stems from his assertion that the Arctic Sea was carrying weapons as noted by the BBC:
Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the online maritime bulletin Sovfracht, said he had left the country after receiving a menacing late-night phone call. Voitenko said an unidentified man called him on the night of 1 September and warned him he was "stepping on the heels of some serious people".
Speaking from Istanbul, where he is now in hiding, Voitenko said he was bluntly informed that these "guys are out for revenge. I was told: 'They are very unhappy with you. But they don't want unpleasantness'." Voitenko said the man urged him to leave Russia as rapidly as possible.
A journalist has fled Russia after suggesting the Arctic Sea cargo ship that was apparently hijacked in July may have been carrying illegal weapons.This was also covered in the BBC Newshour radio broadcast, the entirety of which can be found here. The suggestion that Israel was involved in the ship's hijacking get mentioned in that report.
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Mr Voitenko - who was among the first to cast doubt on official explanations about the ship's disappearance - told the BBC it was nonsense to suggest pirates had been involved.
Eight men have been charged with hijacking and piracy over the case
Instead he suggested the ship may have been carrying a secret shipment of weapons as part of a private business deal by state officials.
The saga of the MV Arctic Sea continues as part of the crew is released:Some of you will find the Bermuda Triangle explanation pleasing.Crew members of the Arctic Sea cargo ship joked that they had disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle and been fed ice cream by pirates as they returned home to their families in Arkhangelsk on Sunday.
But the 11 sailors, who were greeted by relatives as they stepped off a train from Moscow, refused to shed any light on what had happened between July 24, when their ship was purportedly seized by hijackers near Sweden, and their rescue off the western coast of Africa by the Navy on Aug. 17.
The sailors also would not discuss their subsequent two weeks in Moscow, where investigators questioned them and only allowed them to contact relatives Thursday.
“The ship was in the sea, in the Bermuda Triangle, and the pirates fed us ice cream,” a sailor said in response to reporters’ questions about the ship’s mysterious disappearance, the Life.ru news portal reported.
Asked when the crew had realized that pirates had seized the ship, a sailor said: “Immediately. It was clear from the first minute.”
Plied about life on the ship with the hijackers and being questioned in Moscow, the sailors repeatedly offered the same answer: “It wasn’t very pleasant for us,” Life.ru reported.
Four other sailors from the original crew remain on the Arctic Sea and are sailing toward Novorossiisk, authorities say.
This will drive the conspiracy theorists crazy: Russia to seek help probing Arctic Sea mystery:Russian authorities said Wednesday they will run the investigation into the alleged Arctic Sea hijacking but will ask other nations to help solve the mystery of the cargo ship's bizarre voyage.Any volunteers?
The Maltese-flagged freighter headed to Russia under a navy escort on Wednesday.
The Arctic Sea seemed to vanish after sailing from Finland on July 21 with a Russian crew and a load of timber. A Russian warship intercepted the freighter last week in the Atlantic and eight suspected hijackers are jailed in Moscow, facing charges of kidnapping and piracy.
Sparse information has led to speculation the ship could have been carrying sensitive cargo.
The Foreign Ministry said an initial search conducted shortly after the ship was intercepted revealed no suspicious cargo.
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In a statement on its Web site, the Investigative Committee said a Russian court had formally impounded the Arctic Sea and Russia plans to ask authorities in Sweden, Finland, Malta and other nations to "conduct investigative actions" in the case.
The agency also defended the treatment of 11 Arctic Sea crew members, calling them victims but demanding they remain in Moscow for further questioning.
However, further more detailed searches are due take place before the all-clear is declared definitive. Meanwhile, reports suggest that crew complicity in the affair will be one avenue of inquiry.
The announcement came after consistent speculation that the ship was actually laden with a secret cargo of some kind, with drugs, nuclear materials and missiles bound for Iran among the candidates mentioned.
Bizarrely, a statement from Russia’s foreign ministry suggested that when the vessel was interdicted on August 17, the master claimed that the ship is actually the North Korean-owned Chongdin-2 and was actually en route from Havana to Sierra Leone. Pyongyang has apparently dismissed the idea.
The closest match to that name on the Lloyd’s Marine Intelligence Unit database is Chon Ji 2, which is 1979-built, 3,870 dwt and North Korea-flagged. Its International Maritime Organisation number is 8988129. Arctic Sea is Malta-flag, 1991-built, 4,706 dwt and bears the IMO number 8912792.
“The North Korean side clarified the situation and told us that at the moment the suspect ship was intercepted, the aforementioned North Korean ship could not be found at those co-ordinates as it was in an Angolan port,” the ministry said.
Russia says nothing suspicious found on Arctic Sea:Russia said on Tuesday nothing suspicious was found on board the Arctic Sea ship, whose seizure by suspected pirates off the coast of Europe this month sparked a media storm.In a separate statement, the Mafia reports that organized crime is not a problem, either.
Media reports had speculated that the ship had a secret cargo of arms or even nuclear materials, saying a ship carrying timber in some of the world's best policed seas would be an unlikely target for pirates.
"The initial inspection of the ship did not uncover any suspicious cargo," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Okay, let's review - a couple of weeks ago a Maltese-flagged, Finnish-owned, Russian-crewed timber ship was allegedly boarded by pirates posing as Swedish police off the coast of Sweden.
The mystery surrounding the hijacking of a Russian freighter in July has taken a new twist with reports claiming the pirates were acting in league with the Israeli Mossad secret service in order to halt a shipment of modern weapon systems hidden on board and destined for Iran.More here.
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The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported over the weekend that the vessel Arctic Sea had been carrying x-55 cruise missiles and S300 anti-aircraft rockets hidden in secret compartments among its cargo of timber and sawdust.
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The eight alleged hijackers originally claimed to be environmentalists when they boarded the ship in the Baltic Sea in Swedish waters on July 24.
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But Dmitri Rogozin, Russian ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said that allegations that the Arctic Sea had been smuggling weapons was "fantasy" and "ridiculous."
The Russian newspaper Pravda's website reported that the ship had been smuggling cruise missiles to Iran on a well-worn path via Algeria, but a "power that has relations with Ukraine" had prevented this.
The Novaya Gazeta reported that the hijackers had been operating on behalf of the Mossad. It also reported that the motive for the visit to Moscow by President Shimon Peres the day after the Russians recaptured the vessel had been an urgent request to his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev to refrain from supplying Iran with weapons.
Israeli officials dismissed the reports as "classical conspiracy theories," but defense experts noted that Israel has a record of hijacking foreign vessels bearing arms to its enemies.
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Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Shlomo Brom, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, did not rule out Israel covert action against Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear arms, but seriously suspected Israel would take action against Russian ships.
"It seems that it's full of mystery since everything surrounding Russia is mysterious. And if it's mysterious they dump it on Israel," Brom told The Media Line.
Brom, a retired senior intelligence officer, added he did not believe it could enhance the Mossad's image since it appeared to be a failed hijacking.
What now seems increasingly likely, though, is that the truth will never come out. Crew members have told Russian news reporters that they have been told not to disclose "state secrets", while well-informed Russian marine journalists have said they are now wary of commenting further on the case. And the explanations proffered by the alleged pirates have raised more questions than they answer. When quizzed on Russian state TV last week, Mr Lunev said he was working with an ecological group, who approached the Arctic Sea for help when their own inflatable ran out of petrol. But when asked what the group's name was, he answered: "I don't know. It was some private organisation."So, naturally, Mossad.
Even the suspects' extensive tattoos - normally a reliable guide to identifying different sub-tribes of the Russian Mafia - have caused bafflement. "It is clear they are not our criminals, said Alexander Sidorov, the author of Russian Criminal Tattoos book, after examining TV footage.
The ship appears to be headed straight to Russia:Thanks, Fred!
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Russia said that the ship would proceed to Novorossiiski on the Black Sea for inspection.
Krasnoshtan says that it will be interesting to see who pays Stora Enso the insurance compensation for the cargo if the ship ends up in Russia.
“If the ship continues to Russia without stopping in Algeria first, it could be possible that suspicions of a secret cargo might be true.”
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Also the crew is being held in the same prison as the hijackers. How odd is that? No red carpet treatment here:
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The crew members were not allowed to go home on Thursday: like the hijackers they were taken to the Lefortovo remand prison for questioning.
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and:
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Vazir Fazylov, the father of seaman Dmitri Fazylov was surprised that his son was not even allowed to call home. “Nobody is saying anything. We’re just watching TV. This is stupid.”
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Source:
source
Secrets apparently not being what they used to be, a report has surfaced that the nominally timber carrying Finnish owned, Maltese registered, Russian manned MV Arctic Sea was not just an old, tired timber carrying ship, but a converted into something else to be a carrier of a very mysterious cargo installed in a Russian shipyard behind a bulkhead that had to be removed to make space for it. Or something.The official version of events was questioned by Yulia Latynina, a leading Russian opposition journalist and commentator.Much as I want to apply Occam's razor to this issue, there are some compelling facts that could sustain a good conspiracy theory - such as the Russian navy being sent in some degree of force to find a ship in which, as near as I can tell, their legal interest ought to be hovering around zero. That the crew was Russian might make the Russian moves were undertaken under - as odd as it is to say about the Russians - "humanitarian" grounds. and, of course, once the pirates were found on the high seas instead of, say, Spanish waters, then the Russians had the legal right to take action. The current law probably most applicable to this "high seas" situation is UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, Part VII, :
"The Arctic Sea was carrying something, not timber and not from Finland, that necessitated some major work on the ship," she wrote in the Moscow Times newspaper on Wednesday.
During two weeks of repair works in the Russian port of Kaliningrad just before the voyage, the ship's bulkhead was dismantled so something very large could be loaded, she wrote.
"To put it plainly: The Arctic Sea was carrying some sort of anti-aircraft or nuclear contraption intended for a nice, peaceful country like Syria, and they were caught with it," she said.
Article 105. Seizure of a pirate ship or aircraftWhich, of course, points out how convenient it was that the putative pirates managed to have the ship sailed to clearly international waters where the Russians could act without incurring the wrath of sovereign states that lined the ship's path to where it was boarded.
On the high seas, or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State, every State may seize a pirate ship or aircraft, or a ship or aircraft taken by piracy and under the control of pirates, and arrest the persons and seize the property on board. The courts of the State which carried out the seizure may decide upon the penalties to be imposed, and may also determine the action to be taken with regard to the ships, aircraft or property, subject to the rights of third parties acting in good faith.
The lumber’s value has been put at $1.8 million, a sum that hardly justifies an attack that would amount to the most blatant act of sea banditry in European waters in centuries.Of course, the best part, an indication the ship was acting "strangely in the waters off Sweden:
Yet the official version of what transpired is fraught with inconsistencies, prompting observers to suggest that Russian authorities are trying to cover up a smuggling or trafficking operation.
When Swedish police first said the ship had been hijacked near the island of Gotland on July 24, they cited the crew as saying masked men had bound and beat them before fleeing in a high-speed boat.
Yet Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said Monday that the same hijackers — four Estonians, two Latvians and two Russians — were found on the ship off West Africa and they surrendered without a shot being fired.
One possible explanation for this contradiction is a statement issued by the European Commission last Friday that said the ship had “supposedly” been attacked twice, the first time off the Swedish coast and then off the Portuguese coast.
Reached by telephone Wednesday, a commission spokesman refused to elaborate on the statement.
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Also, Malta’s Maritime Authority acknowledged Tuesday that the ship “had never really disappeared,” seemingly confirming a claim by Moscow’s NATO representative Dmitry Rogozin that disinformation “was used intentionally in order not to hamper the military’s work.”
Speaking by telephone from Brussels, a NATO spokesman confirmed Wednesday that the Western alliance had used its tracking system to assist Moscow in finding the ship.
Yet Finnish police said Wednesday that contact with the Arctic Sea was in fact lost for some time. “We did not have full track of the ship for the whole time, but a while before the Russian operation took place we were following one that we strongly suspected to be it,” police spokesman Jan-Olof Nyholm said by telephone from Helsinki.
Further complicating the picture are Swedish media reports suggesting that the Arctic Sea was hiding a second, smaller vessel while sailing off Sweden’s east coast.
Data from an automatic vessel tracking system showed that the Arctic Sea’s crew constantly tried to hide one side of the ship from being visible to other ships in the vicinity, the Dagens Nyheter newspaper, citing a Swedish coast guard official, reported on its web site Wednesday.
Business Week asks the question: "Piracy in Northern Seas: A New Trend?", based on the misadventures of the MV Arctic Sea: A mysterious hijacking in the Baltic Sea has European authorities concerned about the spread of piracy into the Northern HemisphereI don't think European authorities should be losing much sleep over concerns that the Baltic or North Atlantic or even the Mediterranean are about to become like the waters off Somalia.
It appeared that the mystery of the MV Arctic Sea was all neatly (sort of) wrapped up by the Russian assertion that their Navy had "rescued" the crew and taken eight "pirates" into custody. See here.A SENIOR Finnish policeman involved in the Arctic Sea case has apparently cast doubt on the Russian ministry of defence line that the general cargoship was the victim of a hijack.The article goes on to point out several oddities in the stories that reportedly have been told by the crew. I guess it's not over.
Jan-Olof Nyholm, detective superintendent at Finland’s Centralkriminalpolisen, in an interview with Sweden’s TT news agency, revealed: “We have had an idea where it was heading for some time, but for tactical reasons we have not been able to comment on it. It was a case of aggravated criminal extortion and there was a very real threat to life and limb.”
Asked directly whether the Russian-owned ship had at any time been totally lost, he answered ambiguously: “Perhaps not as terribly lost as many may have believed.”
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A statement on the official website of the Finnish police is notably circumspect. It confirms that an investigation into attempted extortion is taking place and that the police have been unable to comment openly for unspecified tactical reasons.
But the barb comes with the injection of a decided note of caution: “The authorities have not been able to confirm the alleged hijacking, and the connection between the alleged incident and the later events has not been established yet.”
"Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"Really, you can't make this stuff up.
Experts and officials across Europe said the saga of the missing 98-meter (320-foot) freighter was perplexing.
"The whole thing has been sniffy from start to finish," said David Osler, a maritime journalist at Lloyd's List in London.
Mikhail Voitenko, the editor of the online Maritime Bulletin-Sovfracht, said he had spoken with some of the Arctic Sea's sailors and was more puzzled than ever.
If this report holds up a lot of people will be proven wrong (including me) about the adventures of MV Arctic Sea - but the Russian Navy has announced the arrest of eight pirates allegedly involved in the hijacking of the ship. As reported by the Telegraph: Russian navy arrests eight "pirates" who seized the cargo ship Arctic Sea:Eight 'pirates' of Russian, Latvian and Estonian nationality have been arrested for the hijacking of the cargo ship Arctic Sea in Swedish waters.Well, it is an explanation.
Following the arrests, which took place on board the ship, Anatoly Serdyukov, the Russian defence minister, has given more details of events surrounding the mystery vessel and its diversion to west Africa by the hijackers.
"These people, after claiming that their boat was not working, boarded the Arctic Sea and using the threat of arms, demanded that the crew follow all of their orders without condition," he said.
"Then the Arctic Sea moved on to an African route indicated by the aggressors to after turning off navigation equipment."
"Eight people - not members of the crew - have been detained," he said.
The suspects, who boarded the ship in Swedish waters, include four Estonian citizens, two Latvians and two Russian nationals.
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European and Russian maritime experts had speculated that that the ship's hijacking was not connected with an official manifest of timber and could be linked to an illegal cargo, such as arms, drugs or even nuclear materials, carried without the knowledge of crew or the ship's owners.
Mail Online says Missing cargo ship Arctic Sea found and crew rescued following pirates' 1million ransom demand:It is believed the freighter had been tracked for several days by the Russian navy, with assistance from Nato.Telegraph Online is a little clearer: "Mystery as missing cargo ship Arctic Sea found without hijackers":
Yesterday, Russian defence minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the crew were 'alive, healthy and not under armed guard'.
He went on: 'Debriefing is under way to clarify all aspects of the disappearance and loss of signal from this vessel.
'In the coming hours we will explain what happened with it, why communications with it were lost, why it changed its itinerary.'
Secrecy surrounding the recovery of the vessel has added to the mystery of its fate.
Theories include a Russian mafia or business dispute, hijacking by pirates, or the stowing of a highly valuable 'hidden cargo' on board.
The missing cargo ship Arctic Sea and its crew have been found by a Russian warship off west Africa, but mystery still surrounds its disappearance as it was not under the control of armed hijackers or pirates.
Spiegel Online has a nice round up of everything that is unknown about the MV Arctic Sea at Pirates, Mercenaries Or Smugglers?: Missing Russian Ship Reportedly Spotted. This includes a report of an unconfirmed ransom demand for the ship and another report of a second attack on this ship: The German business daily reports that the ship was apparently hijacked, and that a ransom of around $1.5 million has been asked for. However, these reports remain unconfirmed. Meanwhile a spokesperson for Antonio Tajani, the European commissioner for transport, told news agencies that the ship had actually been the victim of two attacks -- one off the coast of Sweden, and another off the coast of Portugal. But, he said, it seemed as though the attacks had nothing to do with "traditional piracy" or "armed attacks on the high seas."For those of you interested in seeing older reports posted as this story has unfolded (oldest post last), you can visit the links here, here, here, here, here and here.
More here:The Arctic Sea, which disappeared with a 15-strong Russian crew on board more than two weeks ago, was spotted about 520 miles off the Cape Verde islands yesterday, according to French officials.
But today Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported that it was still unconfirmed whether the sighted ship was the Arctic Sea.
According to the Itar-Tass news agency in Russia Alexander Karpushin, the country's ambassador in Cape Verde, had been unable to clarify the situation.The Bay of Biscay? As you can see from the map, there is a distance between "somewhere off Cape Verde" and "in the Bay of Biscay."
He told the Vesti news channel: “I met with the country’s authorities, in particular with the chief of the general staff of Cape Verde’s armed forces, who did not confirm the information that the ship had been detected.”
The Russian maritime website, Sovfrakht, also reported the ship's tracking system was broadcasting signals from the Bay of Biscay at 8.30am today.
A Finnish police officer told the AFP news agency on Saturday that a demand had been made in connection with the Arctic Sea, a 4,000 tonne Finnish-owned cargo ship.UPDATE2: Videos of interest:
Detective chief superintendent Jan Nyholm said: "Yes, it is true that there has been a demand for ransom, which is money.
"The demand has been made to the company which owns the ship, Solchart Management in Finland."
Markku Ranta-Aho of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation told national YLE radio that the demand was addressed to the Finland-based company that owns the Arctic Sea, but would not give further details or say where the ship might be located.
Missing Ship "Arctic Sea" found:Reports citing local coastguards now suggest it has been seen some 400 nautical miles from the Cape Verde islands, off the coast of West Africa.Can't wait to hear the sea stories on this one.
Russian navy ships have been searching for the 4,000-tonne Maltese-flagged vessel, which had been carrying timber.
However, the spokesman said there was a "high possibility" that the ship had been located. French intelligence officials also believe they have found the ship in the same area, he said.
Observers have suggested the ship was hijacked, possibly because of a Russian commercial dispute.
Following the reported sighting, a spokesman for the French defence ministry told the BBC that the Arctic Sea was thought to be in international waters.
The spokesman said his information came from the Cape Verde coastguard, who said the ship was outside their jurisdiction. He was unable to confirm the coastguard's report.
