Do you know anything about fish from Russia that we should know about?
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, three Danish companies have bought cod worth millions from Russian oligarch Vitaly Orlov, who has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and is suspected of spying in the North Sea and the Netherlands.
Danwatch and Ekstra Bladet can document this based on access to files and logistics data from C4ADS – an American interest organisation that exposes illegal networks.
Unlike the US, for example, the majority of Russian fish is not subject to EU sanctions. And the Russian fishing industry is still going strong, according to figures from Russia’s Ministry of Fisheries, the Russian fishing industry contributed a total of 7.6 billion Danish kroner in taxes and social contributions to the Russian treasury in 2023.
Which is why trade in Russian fish is problematic, experts say.
“This is a problem,” says Birthe Larsen, associate professor of economics and expert in sanctions at CBS, “the Russians do not feel a negative impact on the economy to the same extent and will therefore feel less pressure to stop the war, which is the whole purpose of sanctions.”
Professor at Nord University Business School, Frode Nillsen, who is an expert in food systems and Russia, agrees:
“It’s a problem of principle that we allow import or transit operations with Russian-caught fish when we know that 10-20 percent of the profit is used to buy munitions,” says Frode Nilssen.
The amount of Russian fish purchased by Danish companies
- Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and until October this year, Danish companies have imported Russian fish worth DKK 532 million.
- Danwatch and Ekstra Bladet can reveal that in 2022 and 2023 alone, three Danish companies bought fish worth at least DKK 137 million from a Russian oligarch suspected of espionage:
- The three companies have purchased Russian fish from LLC Roliz, JSC Sakhalin Leasing Flot and JSC YAMSy, all subsidiaries of Russia’s largest company in the fishing industry, Norebo Group.

Sources: Statistics Denmark, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration and C4ADS.
“Hard to avoid”
The Danish fishing giant A. Espersen imported 732 tons of Alaska pollock in 2023 at a value of DKK 26 million.
Director of A. Espersen, Tino Bendixen, writes in an email to Danwatch that “the company was among the first Danish companies to phase out their production and sales in Russia”, but they still import fish:
“We buy fish from Russian fishing companies that – like Espersen and other companies in our industry – are an integral part of the global food industry supply chain. We act within the framework that is politically determined and we follow all sanctions.”
There are no Russian fish in the products that the company sells in Denmark under the name Rahbek, says Tino Bendixen and confirms that it is generally difficult to know whether you as a consumer are eating Russian fish:
“For the vast majority of fish products, consumers cannot know for sure who owns or operates the ships that have landed and unloaded the fish in a Norwegian or Russian port, for example.”
Russian fish worth 405 million
Jeka Fish, which you may know from the ‘Havet’s’ fish cakes, has purchased Russian cod for 104 million Danish kroner since 2022. And it’s not the first time. Since 2018, Jeka Fish has purchased around 13,000 tons of cod for a total value of DKK 405 million.
“Unfortunately, the business that Jeka Fish runs does not have a basis for existence without imported cod,” writes CEO Halldor Arnason in an email to Danwatch.
“Russian cod is necessary if we want to maintain our production and the jobs associated with it.”
He also emphasises that customers who do not want Russian fish will not get it.
Did you know that …
- Well-known billionaire Karsten Ree and the rest of the Ree dynasty have bought Russian fish for millions since the start of the war in Ukraine.
- Karsten and his sons Christian, William and Oliver Ree together own just over 20% of the company Jeka Fish, which is headquartered in Lemvig and produces fish cakes under the ‘Havet’s’ brand, which can be purchased in a number of Danish supermarkets.
The third Danish company is Boco Seafoods, a company under Kangamiut Seafood in Dronninglund, which in 2023 purchased 203 tons of cod at an estimated value of DKK 6.9 million. The director of Kangamiut Seafood, Rasmus Grønborg Bak, says that Boco Seafood is in liquidated and so are the Russian suppliers.
However, trade data shows that both Kangamiut Seafood and another subsidiary, DanSea Nordic A/S, most recently purchased Russian fish in 2023.
“In relation to your question about ethics, we are very aware of the dilemma we face,” writes Rasmus Grønborg Bak in an email.
“On the one hand, the EU explicitly exempts basic foods, including fish, from Russian suppliers from sanctions, partly due to food safety concerns. On the other hand, as a company we do not want to support the Russian economy, which is why we have reduced the number of Russian suppliers to just a few,” writes the CEO, who did not wish to be interviewed.
Here are the Danish importers of Russian fish
- A. Espersen
- Boco SEAFOOD A/S (subsidiary under Kangamiut Group)
- Sirena
- Nordic Seafood A/S
- SEPIO
- North Atlantic Shipping
- Jeka Fish
- DanSea Nordic A/S (subsidiary under Kangamiut Group)
Source. Access to TRACES and IUU lists via the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration
Controversial fish
The three companies have purchased Russian fish from LLC Roliz, JSC Sakhalin Leasing Flot and JSC YAMSy, all subsidiaries of Russia’s largest company in the fishing industry, Norebo Group.
Norebo Group is owned by the Russian tycoon Vitaly Orlov, who is a controversial character, partly because several of the ships in Norebo Group’s fleet are suspected of espionage in the Netherlands and Northern Norway by several media.
This is denied by Sergey Sennikov, CEO of Norebo Management Company.
“Norebo is a private fishing company that advocates responsible corporate behaviour and has no ties to any government. Norebo, its group companies and employees have never been, are not and will not be involved in espionage or similar,” writes Sergey Sennikov.
“Such accusations are fantasy and are bordering on populist paranoia. Norebo is only engaged in the production and supply of seafood for human consumption.”

Russian oligarch under investigation for espionage
By trading with Russian companies, Danish companies risk supporting President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. “Vitaly Orlov is part of Putin’s outer circle,” explains Jakob Tolstrup, Associate Professor and PhD at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University.
The outer circle earns incredibly large sums of money, but they do not have close connections to Putin and are thus dependent on having contacts in the inner circle to become “vulgarly rich”, as Jakob Tolstrup puts it:
“Vitaly Orlov has a very important contact to Putin’s inner circle, as he allegedly collaborated with oligarch Gleb Frank, whose father-in-law, Gennady Timchenko, is a big shot.”
According to Forbes, Gennady Timchenko is worth DKK 165.8 billion and owns several companies, including the natural gas company Novatek.
“But more interestingly, Gennady Timchenko has been part of Putin’s inner core since the 1990s,” says Jakob Tolstrup.
Fishing vessels with suspicious sailing patterns
In late 2022, the Kremlin announced a sudden redistribution of fishing quotas, with Norebo Group receiving the largest share. According to several media outlets, this was due to effective lobbying of the Kremlin. Norebo Group’s close relationship with the Russian government is also reflected in the many loans granted to Norebo by the state-controlled bank Sberbank, which has been crucial to the company’s rapid growth. Loans that Norebo itself has also addressed on social media.
The following year, Vitaly Orlov and Norebo Group came under scrutiny in the media for more shady activities. In 2023, the Nordic media, DR, NRK, SVT and Yle, revealed that at least 50 Russian ships had been collecting information in NATO waters over the last ten years. The ship Taurus, owned by Norebo Group, was one of them.
In December 2022, Taurus was docked in Tromsø Harbour in northern Norway, where it delayed its departure several times until an American submarine appeared and Taurus followed the submarine as it left Tromsø.
One of Taurus‘ many unusual sailing patterns that led a former intelligence agent to tell the Nordic media that it was a case of “espionage”.
Another example is from May 2024, when the Dutch media Pointer revealed suspicious activity among Russian fishing vessels, including the Arctic Princess. A reefer ship, also belonging to Norebo Group, which became central to the media’s investigation because it was close to military installations and ports of call in the Netherlands.

No more Russians in Dutch ports
In May 2024, the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, Mark Harbers, told the Dutch parliament that Russian fishing vessels were no longer welcome in Eemshaven.
“Future requests for dispensations for Russian-flagged ships to enter a Dutch port will no longer be granted,” Harbers said.
PET, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, has no comment on specific companies, people or cases, but writes in an email to Danwatch:
“PET is very aware of Russia’s ongoing attempts to obtain products and technology from Western countries that can be used in Russia’s military programmes and the industries that support Russia’s military.”
Documentation
The catch certificates that document our Russian fish
Every time a consignment of fish is imported to Denmark, it is accompanied by a catch certificate that documents the exporter and the importer. The ship that caught the fish, the ship that transported the fish and the customs authority that granted access to the country. Information that is not publicly available and the packaging only states in which waters the fish was caught.

Below we have gathered information from all certificates regarding the Danish company A. Espersen’s purchase of Russian fish.
Source: File insights and logistics data from C4ADS
Comment after deadline:
According to several media outlets, the Kremlin announced a sudden redistribution of fishing quotas in 2022, with Norebo Group receiving the largest share, allegedly after effective lobbying of the Kremlin. This was refuted by Norebo Group spokesperson Sergey Sennikov after the article’s deadline:
“This is incorrect: Fishing rights in Russia are allocated for a long period by agreement with the state (in line with other fishing nations), where a share of each company in a TAC for each fish stock is set. . Investment quotas were distributed as a new regulation for some stocks much earlier than 2022, and in 2021 we received a small investment quota of cod and haddock for investment and construction of a processing plant in Murmansk (it is less than 10% of the plant’s annual capacity and the rest we provide from our quotas), which means that this amount was deducted from our historical quota. So we did not receive any additional quotas in 2022, as it is mentioned due to “redistribution of fishing quotas”.