Mysterious "Arctic Sea" Missing Ship

What a mystery this story is!
Some crazy people hijack a ship with Finnish timber, destined for Algeria..
Or were they in fact agents of some government?

Who needs to hijack an old shíp full of timber??!

The cost of the search and rescue operation ran into tens of millions apparently; completely out of proportion for what would be expected.

Interestingly, it was hijacked at the exact spot near Sweden where the "Nordstream" gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is planned to run... Right where there is supposed to be an maintenance station on the pipeline.

Both Nato and Russia would like to manage the security there and they think that Sweden is not capable of doing the job properly as a smaller neutral country... Now we've been manipulated before on the Baltic Sea, so Swedish media is suspicious. Nato - thanks, but no thanks!

http://www.jamestown.org/uploads/pics/Nord%20stream.jpg
Then there was the mysterious delay in passing on the information about the attack to the right authorities.

Plus everybody, from the owner, to the Russian Navy, is lying and giving confusing information about what happened. Sweden and Finland despite neutrality are no strangers to playing along when needed. If the trial ends up being in Sweden, then I doubt it will be free from political influence.

It reminds me a bit of the horrible "Estonia" ferry accident which was also covered up for mysterious reasons, largely by my own government actually... There have sure been some crazy goings-on on the Baltic Sea in the last few decades! I grew up on the shores of this sea and remember well the submarine paranoia, various cold war incidents, the ferry murders and much more.

There is definitely more to the Arctic Sea story than the owner or anybody else is letting on.... But it doesn't look like we'll find out any time soon.

MYSTERIOUS, SINISTER!

Somalia pirates have finally made it to the Baltic sea. )))
Or, there could be some talented imitators.

actually they caught the hijakers- and apparantly they were a mix of estonians, latvians, lithuanians and russians. (probably members of russian organized crime if you ask me). it wouldnt surprise me a bit if the incident was connected to the russian government as the poster of this thread said.

This story is just TOO mysterious and crazy to follow.
Nothing makes any sense anymore. And nobody seems to be telling the truth about what happened. I don't believe any of it anymore.

The Swedish and Finnish blogging world is boiling over with crazy theories.
We haven't seen this much action in our little sea for many years! Hehe... (Or rather, since the crazy 90s or the cold war...)

I guess the "stateless Estonians" won't be returning to Estonia any time soon though....

It's all pretty clear to me. Except for what was on that boat. I wonder :roll:

Personally, I think, what the true story behind is very simple.
All this "shipjacking" was staged by Victor Matveev (head of Solchart Mgmt).
In the middle of summer it became evident, what his company in near bancrupcy. Then, he decided to "stole" Arctic Sea (his only remaining valuable property) from possible confiscation by court order. Overall idea was nice, but implementation sucked totally. :)

Scorpio, I think it has to be more complicated than that.

NATO pulled out all the stops to find the freighter - a mission that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. They wouldn't do that just because a Russian company was trying to pull an insurance scam. They must have at least THOUGHT that there was something A LOT more sinister going on.

The other interesting thing is that it seems almost like Russia and NATO were co-operating. I think the two blocs have only one common enemy - terrorism.

Additionally - the Russian sailors were told that they couldn't speak to media for national security reasons. But an insurance scam has nothing to do with national security....

If it is as simple as you say - then NATOs dramatic involvement and the media ban on the sailors make no sense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Johanna

Scorpio, I think it has to be more complicated than that.

NATO pulled out all the stops to find the freighter - a mission that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. They wouldn't do that just because a Russian company was trying to pull an insurance scam. They must have at least THOUGHT that there was something A LOT more sinister going on.

The other interesting thing is that it seems almost like Russia and NATO were co-operating. I think the two blocs have only one common enemy - terrorism.

Additionally - the Russian sailors were told that they couldn't speak to media for national security reasons. But an insurance scam has nothing to do with national security....

If it is as simple as you say - then NATOs dramatic involvement and the media ban on the sailors make no sense.

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Hmm, what did NATO actually do?
As far as I know -- nothing at all. The operation to locate and arrest the "hijacked" ship was completely performed by Russian fleet. NATO did absolutely nothing, even if there are reasons to to something (for example, ship passed English channel, and no british coast guard tried to stop and examine it). Surprising.

Second point: "the Russian sailors were told that they couldn't speak to media for national security reasons".
The only source of such claims is Voitenko. He is not very credible source for me.

Scorpio - yes I see what you mean.
But for the Russian navy too, it must have been a very expensive operation! I don't see why they would have wasted resources on an insurance scam either.

It's almost pointless to speculate, but I think that terrorism was somehow involved, and that almost certainly the ship had something else other than timber on it.

But I don't think we'll ever find out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Johanna

Scorpio - yes I see what you mean.
But for the Russian navy too, it must have been a very expensive operation! I don't see why they would have wasted resources on an insurance scam either.

It's almost pointless to speculate, but I think that terrorism was somehow involved, and that almost certainly the ship had something else other than timber on it.

But I don't think we'll ever find out.

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terrorism? probably not- the people who were behind this were most likely businessmen and pragmatists not fanatics or idealists (as is typically associated with terrorist groups)

@Tamerlane: I agree.