[9] The ship was manned by a Russian crew of 15 and was declared to be carrying more than $1.8 million worth of timber from Jakobstad, Finland, to Béjaïa, Algeria.

[11] The ship was between the islands of Öland and Gotland in the territorial waters of Sweden when it was allegedly boarded in the early hours of 24 July 2009 by a group of eight to ten English-speaking[12] men.

A press-secretary of the Swedish Police Authority confirmed that one of its investigators had a phone contact with a crew member on 31 July, but refused to disclose its nature.

[13] Coastal tracking radar last picked up the ship's signal near Brest, France; it was later reported being observed by a patrol aircraft near the Portuguese coast.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to NATO, mentioned to the press on 17 August that false information was deliberately supplied to the media in order to keep Russian plans secret.

[22] On 15 August the Finnish Police issued a statement about their investigation, in cooperation with Swedish and Maltese authorities, into "aggravated extortion and alleged hijacking".

[citation needed] According to the Russian defense minister, the hijackers approached the ship on 24 July on an inflatable boat with a purported engine problem, and were thus taken aboard by the crew.

[29] Eleven crew members (the captain and several others remained on the ship) were returned to Moscow and held in isolation as witnesses that, quoting Alexander Bastrykin, First Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia, "need[ed] to be immediately interrogated.

[32] Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a statement on 8 September, saying that nothing suspicious had been found on the Arctic Sea and that Maltese officials would be invited to take part in an inspection of the ship.

[38] On 29 October 2009 the Russian Navy finally delivered the Arctic Sea to Malta where, after an inspection by Maltese authorities, it was allowed to enter harbour and was returned to its owner.

He noted that the size of the naval unit sent out after MV Arctic Sea was larger than that dispatched to deal with the Somali piracy crisis.

[49] A variation of the story suggested that the Russian government itself had staged the hijacking of the ship once it learned about an unsanctioned missile delivery to the Middle East.

[59][60] Before his flight, Mr. Voitenko was the editor-in-chief of the Sovfrakht Marine Bulletin, which first reported the Arctic Sea missing and questioned the official story released by Russian authorities.

He also dismissed as "stupid rumours" reports in British and Finnish newspapers that the ship could be carrying a nuclear cargo that could explain its disappearance and the purported hijacking.

[61] Dmitry Rogozin was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying, "Instead of speculating about the nature of the cargo carried on the Arctic Sea and inventing different types of tales ... important lessons should be drawn from this event.

[64] However, Russia deployed two Ilyushin Il-76 transporter planes with a load capacity of at least 45 tons each to Amílcar Cabral International Airport in Cape Verde, which prompts the question whether there was more payload than the 14 crew members and 8 suspects to be taken home.

[65] Sal International Airport has a long history as a strategic refueling location for Russian and former Soviet Bloc aircraft flying to and from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Speculations say the vessel may have been under Russian control already in an early stage of the incident and rerouted intentionally to thinly populated Cape Verde, where the illegal payload could be secretly unloaded and be brought back to Russia with the local government's support.

[citation needed] In November 2010, the diplomatic cables leak revived the discussion for a period of time, when a senior Spanish prosecutor described "the strange case of the Arctic Sea ship in mid-2009 as 'a clear example' of arms trafficking.

[citation needed] Dmitry Savins, a citizen of Latvia who earlier pleaded guilty to Russian Prosecution Service, was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment on 11 June 2010.

[74] During the preliminary hearing it was revealed that the accused who had chosen a jury trial had reportedly changed their minds; therefore the outcome of the case remained subsequently to be decided by judges alone.

[74] On 24 March 2011, the court returned its verdict on the remaining accused and "the men – a Russian, a Latvian and an Estonian citizen, as well as three others described as stateless – were given sentences ranging from 7 to 12 years.