Tanker Captain Sentenced to Jail and Deportation for Not Obeying USCG
A U.S. District Court on August 7 sentenced the captain of the shadow fleet tanker Marinera (Bella 1) to jail, followed by deportation for his role in fleeing the U.S. Coast Guard and not obeying orders to stop his vessel. The sentencing follows a guilty plea in June on one count of failing to “heave to” when ordered to by the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Munro.
Avtandil Kalandadze, age 47 and a citizen of Georgia, was in command of the tanker Bella 1 from September 2025 until late December 2025. The Bella 1 (318,518 dwt) was bound for Venezuela when it was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Munro, which attempted to stop the vessel as part of the blockade. The empty tanker failed to comply with the Coast Guard’s orders and fled across the Atlantic Ocean. The Munro pursued the Bella 1, which, during the Atlantic crossing, declared it had changed its name to Marinera and claimed to have switched to the Russian flag. The vessel was finally stopped on January 7 and brought to Scotland under U.S. command.
The U.S. reports the tanker had existed in the shadow fleet for the past few years after starting its life in 2000, built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea. She went through five names and various owners before emerging in 2023 as Bella 1. In 2024, the United States sanctioned the shipping company, Louis Marine Shipholding Enterprises, as the registered owner of the Panama-flagged Bella 1 for their role in carrying sanctioned cargo on behalf of Hizballah. By late 2024, the ship was falsely claiming to be sailing under the flag of Guyana.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office asserted in charges against the master that while Kalandadze was the master of the tanker, it transported approximately 1.8 million barrels of Iran-origin oil to Asia. Further, they said that during this time, Kalandadze employed common obfuscation techniques to hide the activities of the Bella 1, including sailing with an inactivated Automatic Identification System (AIS) and concealing the name of the Bella 1 while engaging in a ship-to-ship transfer of the Iran-origin oil to another vessel.
It was reported that the U.S. rushed the captain out of Scotland in January as lawyers attempted to stop his extradition. The court sentenced him to 10 months in jail, and then he will be deported. He had faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison, absent aggravating circumstances.
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The vessel was one of several that the United States seized during its blockade of Venezuela, as well as several others that were stopped during the blockade of Iran. The U.S. was reported to be pursuing forfeiture cases against the vessels.
GMS, the world's largest cash buyer, had confirmed as early as January that it was in discussions to acquire the tankers. The Bella 1 was towed to the United States and, in early June, got underway using the name Era, and registered in Comoros. Equasis now lists the owner as Global Marketing Systems and the status as “to be broken up.”
