Europe prosecutes Baltic anchor crews while ship owners go free

For years, anchors have been dragging across the Baltic Sea floor and tearing up cables. Yet when anyone ends up in court, it is, if at all, officers from Georgia and India. That is the core of a new analysis: Europe goes after the crews and lets the owners walk.

The people who could explain who actually gives the orders on these ships have little to fear from European authorities, the analysis argues.

Here is what happened before. In December 2024, Finnish authorities seized the tanker Eagle S, suspected of dragging its anchor and damaging the Estlink 2 power cable and several data cables in the Gulf of Finland. In October 2025, the Helsinki District Court dismissed the case against the ship's officers, ruling that Finland lacked jurisdiction over an incident in its exclusive economic zone (waters beyond territorial limits).

So the most prominent case so far ended without a verdict. Whether Europe will ever reach the owners behind such ships is still an open question.