A court in Sweden has ordered the arrest of the bulk carrier Caffa at the request of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. The vessel may have been involved in the illegal export of Ukrainian products from temporarily occupied territories.
This was reported by Prosecutor General of Ukraine Ruslan Kravchenko.
According to him, this is the first case in which a foreign court, following a request for international legal assistance from the Ukrainian prosecution service, approved the arrest of a vessel that may have been involved in the illegal export of Ukrainian products from temporarily occupied territory.
According to the investigation, the vessel Caffa systematically violated the procedure for entering and leaving the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine with the aim of harming the interests of the state.
“To conceal this activity, a false registration scheme was used: in international databases the vessel is listed as Guinea False,” Kravchenko said.
On March 12, 2026, the Office of the Prosecutor General sent a request for international legal assistance to the Ministry of Justice of the Kingdom of Sweden. The Ukrainian side requested a search of the vessel, questioning of the captain and crew members, and the seizure of Caffa. The very next week after receiving the request, the Swedish competent authorities searched the vessel and questioned witnesses.
On June 4, a court in Sweden approved the arrest of the vessel.
