U.S. authorities sold a seized Russian oil tanker to a shipping scrapper for well below its market value in an “economically irrational” deal designed to thwart the owner’s attempt to salvage the vessel, the company’s lawyers said in court papers.
The Justice Department was ordered to respond to the allegations made by the ship’s Russian owner, Burevestmarin LLC, by 9 a.m. Friday.
The Bella 1 tanker was seized by the U.S. military in the North Atlantic in early January after a week-long chase on the high seas. U.S. authorities said the ship, which they said was carrying illegal Iranian oil, was caught while fleeing the U.S. blockade of Venezuela. Burevestmarin’s lawyers dispute the claim that the ship was carrying Iranian oil.
The ship was sold to a scrap dealer for $9.1 million, the company’s lawyers said, well below the $21 million the Bella 1 would fetch as scrap alone.
Even an appropriate scrap price would underestimate its value, they added, because the ship has “considerably higher value” as an “operating commercial vessel.”
“As we have explained and previously informed, the Government is proposing a world in which it can – while refusing to notify known interested parties and while being mindful of the challenges to the Court’s jurisdiction – engage in precisely this type of economically irrational sale for its own convenience,” the owner’s lawyers wrote.
They said the sale was carried out “behind closed doors” as part of “self-serving and unreasonable decisions” by the government.
Representatives for the Justice Department and the scrap dealer named in court documents could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
Previously, Justice Department lawyers argued that the seized vessels put the government in a difficult financial situation, and that the sale of these vessels was therefore necessary to avoid tens of millions of dollars in maintenance and repair costs.
Justice Department lawyer Rajbir Datta told the court in July that “the government spent $60 million maintaining this asset and doing all sorts of mechanical repairs to the asset itself.”
One of the fundamental questions in the ongoing legal battle is whether U.S. officials are correct in arguing that the transportation of Iranian oil benefits the sanctioned Islamic Revolutionary Guard Force.
This issue is further complicated by the fact that the Trump administration is allowing the international sale of Iranian oil to help ease domestic fuel prices.
Lawyers representing the owner of the Bella 1 are also fighting Justice Department efforts to seize other vessels owned by them, citing what they see as a legal double standard invoked by the government, according to court records.
In the case of the Galileo vessel, the shipowner’s lawyers argued that “on March 20, 2026, the same day that the government (under seal and ex parte) alleged that Galileo was a source of influence over the IRGC and IRGC-FQ, it expressly authorized the international sale of Iranian oil – an action that would be illegal under several laws if the shipment of Iranian oil itself necessarily amounted to providing a means of support to the CGRI or the FQ-CGRI or to become the property of the CGRI or the FQ-CGRI.
In the case of another vessel, Skipper, attorneys for Burevestmarin LLC said the Justice Department failed to establish correct venue and may have seized that vessel improperly. The skipper was on the “high seas,” meaning he was outside the territorial waters of the United States or a foreign country.
Gn world
