Norway investigates fraudulent insurance for Russian “shadow fleet”
28/04/2025
Romarine AS, a Norwegian company, is under investigation for issuing fraudulent insurance certificates to oil tankers linked to Russia’s “shadow fleet” being used to evade international sanctions.
Norway’s Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) revealed Romarine was never registered as an insurance provider but still provided documents for ships suspected of being part of Russia’s “shadow fleet.”
Romarine’s website listed, up to March this year, at least 30 oil tankers that were under US, EU, and UK sanctions. These included Captain Kostichev and Ionia, two vessels that were found using Romarine-issued insurance certificates when docking at Russian ports.
Oslo police, who are probing Romarine’s activities, are investigating four individuals, a Bulgarian, a Russian, and two Norwegian citizens, on suspicion of creating and using falsified documents and illegally conducting insurance brokerage. On March 25, the FSA issued a public warning against using Romarine’s services.
The “shadow fleet” vessels usually operate without insurance from Western providers, which increases safety and environmental risks.
The FSA investigation was launched in September 2023 into a document that appeared to certify Romarine as an insurer. Authorities found the document contained a forged FSA letterhead, a non-existent Norwegian law, and a fake signature from someone who had never worked at the agency.
"It's an extremely unusual case," Jo Gjedrem, an official at the FSA, told Reuters.
As a result the FSA sent a warning to Romarine in January 2024, but the company did not respond with the regulator issuing an order on March 4, instructing Romarine to halt its operations.
The company claimed it was operating within legal regulations but had chosen to pause its business until receiving a response from the FSA.
Romarine AS is owned by Andrey Mochalin, a Russian citizen and a former employee of the Norwegian insurance firm Hydor AS.
According to data from the Norwegian commercial database Proff, Mochalin fully owns the company. The Norwegian state domain registrar Norid AS confirmed that Romarine’s website is registered in Russia. Two commercial IP tracking services traced its location to St. Petersburg.
Romarine said it was working to identify what went wrong and claimed this was due to a “technical glitch” after implementing an automated system.
Finland and Denmark have raised concerns that they were not officially informed by Norway of the investigation into ships using their waters which has led to calls for tighter enforcement of sanctions, more transparent coordination, and the reassessment of cross-border warning systems to ensure the effectiveness of maritime controls.
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