A clandestine network of aging tankers that long kept Venezuela’s economy afloat is finally breaking under American pressure. The US has effectively halted the flow of black-market crude from the South American nation, seizing vessels and forcing others to flee toward Russian protection.
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Ships in the global shadow fleet
For years, this so-called “dark fleet” operated with impunity. Comprising thousands of ships globally, the network used high-tech signal spoofing and old-school disguises to move billions of dollars in sanctioned oil from Venezuela, Russia, and Iran. But a recent aggression by US forces has upended the trade. The pivot point came with the seizure of the Skipper, a 20-year-old tanker that attempted to hide its location while loading 1.8 million barrels of crude at Venezuela’s Jose Terminal.
The interdiction sent a shockwave through the maritime black market. Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a senior analyst at Windward, told the Wall Street Journal that the strategy has been effective.
“The dark fleet model, for now, with Venezuela has been broken.”
— Michelle Wiese Bockmann, Senior Analyst at Windward
Desperate Measures at Sea
Owners of these shadow vessels are scrambling to adapt. As the Coast Guard pursued a ship known as the Bella 1 through the North Atlantic in January, the crew engaged in a desperate, real-time makeover. They painted over the ship’s name, renaming it the Marinera, and hastily applied Cyrillic lettering to the hull in an attempt to pass as a Russian vessel. It didn’t work. US