Related videos:
Avtandil Kalandadze, 47 years old and a citizen of the Republic of Georgia, pleaded guilty this Friday before the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. for refusing to obey Coast Guard orders during a several-week chase across the Atlantic Ocean, according to the announcement by the Department of Justice.
Kalandadze was the captain of the tanker Motor Tanker Bella 1, a vessel from the so-called "ghost fleet" that transported oil from Iranian and Venezuelan sources for the benefit of adversaries of the United States.
According to the plea agreement, between September and the end of December 2025, the Bella 1 transported approximately 1.8 million barrels of Iranian oil to Asia under the command of Kalandadze.
During that period, the captain employed systematic evasion techniques: he sailed with the Automatic Identification System (AIS) turned off and concealed the ship's name while conducting ship-to-ship oil transfers at sea.
In December 2025, while the Bella 1 was headed to Venezuela, it was intercepted by the coast guard USCGC Munro.
The ship refused to comply with the order to stop and fled across the Atlantic for weeks, covering approximately 7,900 kilometers from the Caribbean Sea to the North Atlantic.
During the escape, and under the instructions of a corporate representative from the ship's operator, Kalandadze repeatedly disobeyed orders to stop and destroyed records and information onboard.
On January 7, 2026, the Munro assisted in carrying out the legal seizure of the vessel, which by then had been renamed Marinera and had adopted a Russian flag on December 24, 2025.
Russia protested the action, labeling it as an "illegal interception" in open waters, while the Bella 1 had been sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) since June 2024 due to its connections with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran, designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
Kalandadze pleaded guilty before Judge Beryl A. Howell for the offense of failing to obey a stop order from a coast guard officer. Sentencing is set for August 7, 2026, and the offense carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. He will be deported upon completing his sentence.
The District of Columbia prosecutor, Jeanine Ferris Pirro, was emphatic: "This defendant endangered the lives of American sailors and Coast Guard members while attempting to evade U.S. sanctions and move illicit oil. Today's guilty plea makes it clear that those who jeopardize our military and try to undermine our sanctions laws will be held fully accountable."
The case, investigated by the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the FBI, sets a precedent: it is the first criminal guilty plea of a captain from the "ghost fleet" in the United States.
This process is part of a broader campaign against the network of ships supplying the regimes of Iran and Venezuela.
Another vessel from the same network, the Skipper, was subject to seizure proceedings in February 2026 for carrying 1.1 million barrels intended for Cubametales, a Cuban state-owned company sanctioned by OFAC since July 2019.
The Deputy Attorney General for National Security, John A. Eisenberg, issued a direct warning to fleet operators: "Kalandadze's guilty plea should serve as a warning to the owners and operators of the ghost fleet. The Department of Justice and our partners will pursue the ghost fleet from the Caribbean Sea to the North Atlantic, the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Persian Gulf, and any intermediate locations. They will not escape."
Filed under: