What is the fleet of ghost ships that Venezuela is accused of evading sanctions to export its oil?

Beyond its possible political goal, the measure has economic implications, making Venezuelan oil exports even more difficult by putting pressure on the ghost fleet.

But what do we know about how these ships work?

The use of ghost fleets is a growing phenomenon, occurring not only in the case of Venezuela, but also in two other oil-producing countries subject to sanctions by the United States and Western powers: Russia and Iran.

Financial information company S&P Global estimates that one in five tankers worldwide is used to smuggle oil from countries under sanctions.

Of these, 10% would carry only Venezuelan crude, 20% would do the same with Iranian crude, while 50% would carry only Russian oil. The remaining 20% ​​would not be tied to a specific country and could transport oil from more than one of those countries.

According to estimates by the maritime analysis company Windward, the global secret fleet consists of around 1,300 ships.

Oil sanctions aim to deter countries or companies from purchasing or participating in crude oil from the penalized countries.

In this context, the sanctioned countries choose to offer their oil at large discounts in order to attract operators or countries willing to take the risk of purchasing it, using – of course – some tricks to disguise the origin.

One of the most common strategies these tankers use to evade sanctions is to frequently change their name or flag.

In the case of the oil tanker seized this Wednesday, for example, it is a so-called ship The captainas CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reports.

The same network said it was a ship that has been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department since 2022 for allegedly being part of an oil smuggling network that helps finance the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as well as the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.

CBS stated that the tanker was called Adisa at the time of sanctioning (before that it was called “Adisa”) The Tokyo) and was one of the ships linked to Russian oil tycoon Viktor Artemov, who was also sanctioned.

Regarding this tanker, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Wednesday on the social network

An interesting element about it The captain is that it is a 20-year-old ship, and that is another common element of the ghost fleet tankers: many are old ships, as the major shipping companies usually get rid of these tankers after 15 years of service, and after 25 years they are usually sent for scrapping.

Another trick used by these ships is to usurp the identity of some ships sent for scrapping and issue the unique registration numbers they received from the International Maritime Organization. This makes them so-called zombie ships, because their activity resembles the identity of a dead person.

A case of this kind related to Venezuela occurred last April, when a ship named Varada arrived in Malaysian waters after a voyage that began in Venezuela two months earlier.

The boat had two suspicious elements: It was 32 years old and was flying the Comoros flag, popular with boats that don’t want to be spotted.

An investigation by the Bloomberg agency revealed that it was a zombie ship, as the real Varada was scrapped in Bangladesh in 2017.

Another common way Ghost Fleet ships operate is to “disguise” the origin of the crude oil by transferring it in international waters, without legal hassle, to other-flagged oil tankers that are responsible for getting the crude oil to its destination and portraying it as coming from an unsanctioned country.

For example, this phenomenon occurred with Venezuelan oil exports to China during the first Trump administration. According to experts interviewed by BBC Mundo, China’s official trade statistics once appeared as if the country was not purchasing Venezuelan crude, when in fact it was.

This was possible because certain refineries purchased oil from these ships that had acquired the cargo in international waters and presented it as coming from non-sanctioned countries.

A final common trick on this type of tanker is to disable the automatic identification system through which data such as the ship’s name, flag, position, speed or course is transmitted. The manipulation of this data makes it possible to conceal the identity, location and course of the ships.

Bloomberg’s investigation in April uncovered the case of four zombie ships transporting Venezuelan crude oil.

The news agency analyzed satellite images and compared them with historical photos of the four ships whose names and identification numbers they used.

Recently, the NGO Transparencia Venezuela published a report based on monitoring events in the oil ports of this country in October this year.

According to the report, 71 foreign tankers were visible in the ports of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, of which 15 were under sanctions and nine were linked to ghost fleets.

Transparency found that an average of 24 oil tankers were located near three ports in western and eastern Venezuela, operating in stealth mode because their regulatory positioning signals were not active.

Likewise, Transparencia claims to have discovered six cargo transfer operations from one ship to another near Amuay Bay in the west of the country.

The report also points out that the majority of ships sailed under the flag of countries that were considered regulatory havens, that is, countries with lax regulatory standards, which ultimately facilitated the operation of these types of ships.

Of the 71 ships, 29 flew the Panamanian flag, six flew the Comoros flag and five flew the Maltese flag.

Transparency shows that 38 of these oil tankers spent more than 20 days without a port call, which is in contrast to the ships of the American oil company Chevron (authorized by Washington to operate in Venezuela), which take over their cargo upon arrival and leave again within a maximum of six days.

“The prolonged stay in the port areas of the country without directly reaching the oil terminals raises serious doubts about the nature of the operations that these ships carry out,” Transparencia said, referring to the ships that took many days without touching the port.

Since the interception and seizure operation carried out this Wednesday originated on the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford – the largest in the world – which is now part of the massive US troop deployment in Caribbean waters off Venezuela, it is likely that the Maduro government’s ability to resort to the ghost fleet will be significantly limited from now on.

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