Sweden seizes evidence at the site of an oil pipeline leak in the Baltic Sea

Sweden’s Homeland Security Agency said on Thursday its preliminary investigation into leaks from two Russian gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea “reinforced suspicions of serious sabotage” as the cause and a prosecutor said evidence at the site had been seized.

Sweden’s safety service said the investigation confirmed that “detonations” caused extensive damage to the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines last week. Authorities had said that when the leaks off Sweden and Denmark first surfaced, explosions were recorded in the area.

The agency, which said what happened in the Baltic Sea was “very serious”, did not give details of its investigation.

But in a separate statement, Swedish prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said “seizures have been made at the crime scene and will now be investigated.”

Ljungqvist, who conducted the preliminary investigation, did not identify the evidence seized. Ljungqvist said he gave “directions to temporarily block off (the area) and conduct a crime scene investigation.”

Now that the initial investigation is complete, the blockade around pipelines off Sweden will be lifted, he said.

The governments of Denmark and Sweden have previously said they suspect several hundred pounds of explosives were involved in carrying out a deliberate act of sabotage. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 leaks released huge amounts of methane into the air.

Last week, underwater explosions ruptured Nord Stream 2 and its sister pipeline, Nord Stream 2, at two locations off Sweden and two off Denmark. The gas pipelines were built to bring Russian natural gas to Germany.

Danish authorities said the two methane leaks they were monitoring in international waters stopped over the weekend. One of the leaks off Sweden also appears to have come to an end.