But as authorities scramble to contain the tanker’s spill and seek to hold accountable those responsible, a Kharon investigation found that the ship’s registered owners and operators connect to a fleet of additional high-risk and sanctioned vessels, including one that Swedish authorities boarded just back in March on suspicion of its being unseaworthy.
That same network also connects to Aleksejs Halavins, an EU national the U.S. designated last year, calling him a major shadow fleet player.
“Sanctions have pushed increasing numbers of aging tankers into a maritime system that did not have adequate services,” said Claire Grunewald, a former sanctions compliance officer at the U.S. Treasury Department who now co-directs a consultancy in Washington.
The Caroline Bezengi, she said, is now the exact kind of environmental disaster that “the Nordic states and the U.K. have really been ringing alarm bells about.”
What happened: The Bezengi, sailing under what European authorities say is a false Cameroonian flag, loaded its cargo of Russian crude at Novorossiysk in May and was bound for India when it ran aground on islands off Oman’s coast. Salvage and clean-up operations are underway.
An image of the damaged Caroline Bezengi off the coast of Oman. (Ambrey)
What Kharon research shows: The ship’s last listed owner in maritime records, Marshall Islands-registered Rentoor Shipmanagement, dissolved in February, corporate records show. The Caroline Bezengi’s listed operator, Villar Shipmanagement, which is also registered in the Marshall Islands, a hub for the shadow fleet with scant transparency requirements, did not respond to a request for comment.
A Muscat-based newspaper reported last month that Rentoor had not responded to Omani demands to take responsibility for the spill’s clean-up. Ambrey, the British maritime risk and response firm coordinating the Caroline Bezengi’s salvage operation, told The Brief it had no details to provide about who currently owns the leaking ship.
According to maritime records, the ownership and commercial management of the Caroline Bezengi changed less than a month after its EU designation last year. But a chain of shared addresses and phone numbers, Kharon found, still connects the vessel to its Cyprus-based former owner, Caroline Marine Inc., and to its Cyprus-registered, U.S.-sanctioned former operator, Lagosmarine Ltd.
The U.S. Treasury Department early last year sanctioned Lagosmarine, Halavins, and several companies that officials said he and his associates used to side-step Western sanctions against Russia oil exports, calling him “a prolific buyer of above-price cap Russian oil since 2023.”
Treasury said Halavins, through one Dubai trading company alone, likely sold more than $2 billion worth of Russian crude oil and oil products. Moscow was likely involved in those operations, Treasury said. Halavins — through UAE- and Liberia-registered companies that Treasury, corporate records, and social media suggest he owns and operates — is tied to several other sanctioned tankers. According to maritime and corporate records, Halavins-managed Sparta Shipmanagement shares an address in Limassol, Cyprus, with both Lagosmarine and Caroline Marine, the Bezengi owner, completing the loop between the new management and old.
Halavins did not respond to requests for comment sent by email and LinkedIn.
In the same boat: Lagosmarine previously operated a host of other now-sanctioned vessels, including some that Western authorities and analysts have said fuel geopolitical conflict and pose similar environmental risks.
Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing in 2024 accused the company of managing a vessel, the Fuga Bluemarine, that shipped oil intended to finance Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. Quds Force and Hizballah. EU maritime data confirms Lagosmarine’s management of the vessel during that period. The White Condor 1 and the Sea Owl 1, two former Lagosmarine ships that the EU sanctioned last year for shipping Russian oil and using high-risk shipping practices, still connect to their old fleetmate the Caroline Bezengi. According to maritime records, the two are now operated by separate Marshall Island-registered firms that share a business address in Shanghai with the Bezengi’s operator and last known owner.
Big picture: With the Caroline Bezengi’s spill threatening the scale of 1989’s Exxon Valdez disaster, Grunewald said that how authorities act next could mark an inflection point for shadow fleet policy and global maritime economics.
If the vessel’s management and insurer do take financial responsibility for the spill, it could change the perceived cost and risks of doing business with the shadow fleet more broadly.
If they don’t pay, and aren’t held accountable by Oman or in international court, “what is going to be [shadow fleet vessels’] incentive down the line to potentially get proper insurance?” Grunewald asked.
For policymakers, she said, the Caroline Bezengi case gives old challenges new urgency — including about how maritime sanctions are implemented and what their knock-on effects can be.
“It was always a question of when might this happen,” Grunewald said.
Kharon Research contributed to this report.
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