Russian navy closes in on missing freighter Arctic Sea

A multi-national task force led by the Russian navy is said to be "close" to finding the missing freighter Arctic Sea after a ransom demand was received by the ship's Finnish owners. And it was confirmed yesterday that radiation tests have now been carried out at the port where the ship started its ill-fated voyage.

Russia's envoy to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, said yesterday: "The operation is in full swing and it is unfolding positively. It's giving us reason to hope for success."

The 3,988-tonne, Malta-registered ship left Pietarsaari in western Finland on July 23 with a cargo of timber worth £900,000. One day later, the ship was boarded off the coast of Sweden by a gang masquerading as drugs police who, it is claimed, tied up the crew, searched the ship and left in an inflatable boat twelve hours later. The Arctic Sea then resumed its journey, but never reached its destination in Algeria, and was last heard from on July 30 off France when its onboard tracking device either broke or was turned off.

On Friday, a plane flying over the Cape Verde islands, off west Africa, claimed to have sighted the vessel, but the Russian ambassador to the islands, Alexander Karpushin, poured cold water on this report, which he described as “not true”. There have been at least two other alleged sightings, and an unconfirmed report that the Portuguese airforce flew over the ship while patrolling their airspace.

British intelligence officers have banned coastguard Sue King from talking publicly about the ship

Some observers say the confirmation that Finnish authorities carried out nuclear tests at Pietarsaari lends credence to suggestions that there may be something more sinister, or expensive, than timber on board the Arctic Sea. The results of the test have not been made public. Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the Russian maritime bulletin Sovfracht, said: "The only sensible answer is that the vessel was loaded secretly with something we don't know anything about." Before her voyage began, the ship spent two weeks in the Russian enclave port Kaliningrad, a notorious centre for smuggling, often organised by mafia gangs.

Sue King, a British coastguard, was the last official to be in direct contact with the Arctic Sea as it passed through the English Channel. However, British intelligence officers have told her not to speak publicly about the incident.

The ship's owners, Solchart Management, said to be three Finnish-based Russian businessmen, received a ransom demand for £910,000 on Saturday. Finnish police have confirmed the case is being treated as "a hijacking with aggravated extortion", and say an armed gang will endanger the "life and health" of the 15 Russian crew unless their demands are met. After the ship was allegedly boarded on July 23, some of the crew's wives received text messages, supposedly from their husbands, saying: "We love you, miss you and we're sticking to our course." The messages were all identical, raising suspicion they were sent by gangsters.

Solchart director Viktor Matveyev expressed his concern on Saturday, saying: "I don't sleep. I don't eat. I have been working 24 hours a day. We hope that the crew is alive."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this article was posted the vessel the Arctic Sea has been located 300 miles off Cape Verde island in West Africa with its crew reportedly safe and well. Russian defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the crew had been taken aboard a Russian naval vessel and that they were "alive, healthy and are not under armed guard". ·