Ship captain pleads guilty in US court after weeks-long atlantic chase over sanctioned Iranian oil

Washington, June 13 (IANS) A ship captain accused of transporting sanctioned Iranian oil and leading the US Coast Guard on a weeks-long chase across the Atlantic Ocean has pleaded guilty in a federal court in Washington, the Justice Department said.

Avtandil Kalandadze, 47, a citizen of Georgia and former master of the tanker Bella 1, pleaded guilty to failing to obey an order from the US Coast Guard to stop his vessel during an interdiction operation.

“Kalandadze’s guilty plea today should serve as a warning to ghost fleet owners and operators and all those who man or otherwise support these dangerous, decrepit vessels,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said.

“The Department of Justice and our interagency partners will pursue the ghost fleet and its facilitators from the Caribbean Sea to the North Atlantic, to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Persian Gulf, and anywhere in between. You will not escape,” he added.

Kalandadze served as master of the Bella 1 from September to late December 2025. During that period, the vessel transported about 1.8 million barrels of Iran-origin oil to Asia, federal prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said he used several methods to conceal the ship’s activities. These included sailing with its Automatic Identification System switched off and hiding the vessel’s identity during a ship-to-ship transfer of Iranian oil.

In December 2025, the Bella 1 was sailing toward Venezuela when it was intercepted by the US Coast Guard Cutter Munro. Authorities said the tanker ignored orders to stop and fled across the Atlantic Ocean.

The Coast Guard pursued the vessel for weeks before assisting in its seizure on January 7.

According to the plea agreement, Kalandadze took multiple steps to avoid interception at the direction of a corporate representative of the vessel’s operator. Prosecutors said he ignored repeated orders from federal law enforcement officers and destroyed records and information aboard the ship.

“This defendant put American sailors’ and Coast Guardsmen’s lives at risk while attempting to evade US sanctions and move illicit oil,” US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said.

“By refusing lawful orders from the US Coast Guard and leading them on a chase across the Atlantic Ocean, he not only obstructed federal law enforcement, but forced our service members to carry out a dangerous boarding operation in heavy seas,” she said.

Acting Deputy Executive Associate Director John Condon of Homeland Security Investigations said Kalandadze “led the US Coast Guard on a reckless weeks-long chase across the Atlantic, endangering servicemembers’ lives all to turn a profit on sanctioned oil for the benefit of US adversaries.”

FBI Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky said the captain used “a range of deceptive maritime tactics” to move “millions of barrels of illicit oil tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and other sanctioned actors engaged in terrorism.”

Sentencing is scheduled for August 7. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The Justice Department said Kalandadze will be deported after completing any prison sentence imposed by the court.

The case comes as Washington steps up efforts to crack down on so-called shadow fleet vessels used to move sanctioned oil from Iran and other countries. US officials say such ships often disable tracking systems, conceal ownership records and conduct transfers at sea to evade detection.

–IANS

lkj/rs