Russian national who issued fake insurance papers to shadow fleet ships held senior roles in European maritime insurance firms

RU

A 41-year-old Russian national who helped Moscow export its oil at prices above the $60-per-barrel Western price cap has been linked to several major maritime insurance and service companies in Norway and the UK, The Insider has discovered. Andrey Mochalin, whose company Ro Marine AS had already been exposed for issuing fake insurance certificates to tankers in the so-called “shadow fleet,” has ties in the industry that extend well beyond Russia’s borders.

In Russia, Mochalin was registered at various times as the founder of at least three companies involved in ship servicing and insurance, all based in St. Petersburg: Hydor St. Petersburg («Хайдор Санкт-Петербург»), Nevskoye Admiralteystvo («Невское адмиралтейство»), and Independent Marine Expertise («Независимая морская экспертиза»). The latter was dissolved in 2021.

A third of St. Petersburg-based Hydor is owned by Johan Gjernes, a Norwegian citizen and Business Development Director at Hydor AS, a Norwegian insurance firm. Headquartered in Oslo, Hydor AS specializes in maritime insurance and maintains offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Rotterdam (Netherlands), and Chelmsford (UK).

According to Mochalin’s own LinkedIn profile, he began working as an underwriter at Hydor AS in December 2013. Although his name no longer appears on the company’s official website, archived versions of the page still show his affiliation as recently as October 2022, The Insider has found.

Mochalin was also listed as a Person with Significant Control (PSC) in the UK-based company Scandic Marine Services Ltd., which provides ship warranty services and legal consultancy in maritime disputes. UK corporate records show Mochalin was affiliated with the company from at least January 2017 to February 2021.

It remains unclear how many shares Mochalin held in Scandic Marine Services. Earlier public filings only state that he has “significant influence or control” over the company.

Another Scandic Marine Services PSC is Russian citizen Maksim Antipin, who still owns 75% of the company. In Russia, Antipin is a co-founder of Scandic Marine Services LLC (ООО «Скандик Марин Сервисес»), where he owns a 25% stake (the remaining share is controlled by the UK entity). In 2021, Antipin also appeared in documents during the liquidation of Independent Marine Expertise, another Mochalin-linked company.

One of Mochalin’s companies, Nevskoye Admiralteystvo, is still active. He owns 50% of the firm, while the rest is held by the company’s CEO, Yevgeny Skuratovsky, who is listed on the firm's website. However, according to data from the Russian business database Kontur.Fokus, the company had no employees from 2020 to 2023.

Curiously, the Nevskoye Admiralteystvo website lists three vessels it claims to own, but tracking data for two of them — the Hyundai 60 and Atlas — has not been updated on MarineTraffic since 2016. The third vessel is vaguely identified only by its type: a “Neftegaz” class vessel, built in Poland during the 1980s for servicing offshore oil and gas platforms. It remains unknown which specific vessel in the dozens built under this class the company actually owns.

The Insider attempted to reach Mochalin for comment. He did not respond.