Just before the United States reimposed its naval blockade of Iranian ports Tuesday afternoon, Iran appeared to be readying blockade-busting vessels in the Persian Gulf that could attempt to evade US military forces.
Twenty-three Iranian vessels operating inside the Strait of Hormuz are fraudulently flagged, recently turned their transponders off or otherwise manipulating their activities to become what the industry calls “dark vessels” that make up “shadow fleets,” according to Windward Intelligence, a maritime security information service.
Iran has significant experience evading US sanctions, relying for years on a complex network of shadow companies, secretive oil cargo swaps and murky financial exchanges, noted Adnan Mazarei, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former deputy director of the International Monetary Fund. Its shadow fleets spoof their identities and sell most of their oil to China.
For example, one Iranian tanker tracked by Windward is traveling a circuitous path, loading Iranian crude at Kharg Island – Iran’s main oil hub – and routing through Iraq’s Basrah Oil Terminal before continuing on to its destination to China. That pattern is consistent with Iranian techniques to mask the origin of its cargo, Windward noted.
