MOSCOW, (Reuters) – Russia said yesterday it had   arrested eight people for hijacking a merchant ship off the  Swedish coast and diverting it to the Atlantic Ocean — while  maritime authorities pretended they had lost track of it.

Press reports said the Maltese-registered, Russian-crewed  vessel had disappeared from radar screens in a maritime mystery,  but the Malta Maritime Authority said on Tuesday that the Arctic  Sea had “never really disappeared”.

The arrests ended weeks of official silence over the ship  and its $1.3 million cargo of timber, giving rise to speculation  about a secret cargo and involvement in espionage.

“Eight people — citizens of Estonia, Latvia and Russia —  were arrested during an operation to free the ship,” Russian  Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told President Dmitry  Medvedev in remarks posted on the Kremlin site www.kremlin.ru

“An investigation established that on July 24 these people  boarded the Arctic Sea and, threatening with weapons, ordered  the crew to change the route. The ship then moved on the route  dictated by the hijackers towards Africa, with its navigation  equipment turned off.”

“This was an act of piracy,” Serdyukov told reporters.