What the Smyrtos did before the boarding
On 14 June 2026, Royal Marines boarded the tanker Smyrtos in the English Channel — the first UK seizure of a Russian shadow-fleet vessel. The vessel's captain was charged under UK sanctions law; a trial is set for 15 December 2026.
The boarding itself is public record. What happened before it is not — until now.
The reconstruction
On 13 March 2022, the Smyrtos lay stationary off Skagen, at the gateway between the North Sea and the Baltic. AIS shows exactly one vessel rafted alongside it for the encounter: the crude oil tanker Monte 1 (IMO 9297553) — about 2 metres closest approach, hull to hull, for approximately 42 hours. Both vessels are Cameroon-flagged, comparable size, aging Aframax-class tankers. That combination — stationary, alongside, in open water, for the better part of two days — is the operational signature of a ship-to-ship oil transfer, not a passing encounter.
The date is the point. Monte 1 was not designated by any government until June 2025 (the UK), followed by the EU, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia. Separately, Ukrainian government records (HUR, an advisory identification rather than a binding designation) describe Monte 1 as a tanker that disables AIS near Russian Baltic ports — the same behavior and the same waters as the encounter above. The association was visible in AIS data more than three years before the first regulator acted on it.
A short video walks through the reconstruction visually.
Method
This is a factual reconstruction from the vessel's own AIS transmissions, anchored to its IMO number — the one identifier that survives a name or flag change. Where an independent source exists to check a finding against, we check it. Where AIS coverage has a gap, we report it as a gap, not as evidence of anything. The detection method itself — how a raft-up like this gets separated from routine port traffic — is proprietary and isn't described here.
As the criminal case against the Smyrtos's captain is active, this reconstruction is offered as factual background. We report what the vessel did; what it means is for the reader, the court, or the reader's own counsel to determine.
Use
This reconstruction and video are free to use, credited to AIS Dark.
A counterparty screening the Smyrtos in 2022, 2023, or 2024 — before Monte 1 appeared on any sanctions list — would have seen this connection three years before enforcement caught up. That lead time is what we sell: reconstructions like this one, on a vessel of your choosing.
As of 29 July 2026. Case AISD-SMYRTOS-01.