Trial to Begin for Chinese Captain Charged with Damaging Baltic Pipeline
A court in Hong Kong is preparing to hear testimony in the trial of a Chinese captain charged with damaging a pipeline and cables in the Baltic in 2023. The court convened on January 20, but the hearing was postponed until February 11 to give the defense lawyer additional time to review the evidence.
Captain Wan Wnguo, age 43, is expected to formally enter a plea in the case on February 11 after having been held since May 2025. He was remanded into custody more than eight months ago and has not applied for bail. The court appointed a lawyer in July 2025 to represent him at the trial.
Finland has been pressing China for cooperation in the case since the damage was first discovered in October 2023. Estonian police suspected the vessel, the NewNew Polar Bear, damaged telecom cables running to Finland and Sweden on October 7 and 8, 2023. The following day, October 8, damage was also detected to the BalticConnect gas pipeline running to Finland.
The NewNew Polar Bear (15,950 dwt) became in 2023 the first Chinese-owned containership to reach the Russian port in Kaliningrad after making a six-week passage from China along the Northern Sea Route. The trip was hailed as a key step, and then just days later, the vessel was suspected of dragging its anchor along the Baltic sea floor.
The ship arrived in port, missing one of its anchors, which the Finnish authorities would ultimately retrieve. Convinced that the ship had damaged the undersea assets, Finland turned to China to aid in the investigation and prosecution. China admitted in 2024 that the Hong Kong-registered ship had likely caused the damage and, in May 2025, detained the ship’s master.
Chinese officials assert Captain Wan had been reckless in the operation of the vessel, but have never asserted intent to damage the assets. The charge sheet, Reuters reports, listed the offenses as damaging the property without a lawful excuse. The penalty could be up to two years in jail.
The lawyer for the defense, Jerry Chung, told Reuters on Tuesday that a total of 10 witnesses were expected to testify regarding the charges. He said it would include other members of the ship’s crew, as well as Hong Kong officials and two experts.
They have also brought two charges of safety violations against Captain Wan. One relates to a failure to report the loss of the vessel’s anchor. He is also charged with failing to provide weekly reports to the vessel’s owner.
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Gasgrid Finland, which operates BalticConnect, reports that it cost the company more than $41 million to repair the pipeline. The incident also sparked increased concern regarding the safety of key undersea assets and the fear that Russia could be staging a so-called hybrid war targeting the assets.
Finland last year attempted to prosecute three crewmembers of another shadow fleet tanker that they asserted damaged telecom cables. The case is on appeal after the court ruled, after months of testimony, that Finland lacked the authority to prosecute because the incident had happened in international waters. Finland is currently detaining crewmembers from another vessel while they are investigating a similar case in which an anchor was dragged, damaging cables running along the sea floor in the Baltic.
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