From Iran to China to Venezuela

The oil tanker seized by US forces on Wednesday apparently had a history of spoofing or hiding location information to conceal its activities, according to ship tracking data.

On Wednesday evening, the United States confirmed that its forces had seized a ship during a helicopter-launched raid near the Venezuelan coast. BBC Verify confirmed the ship was the Skipper by matching a mark seen in US-released footage with a reference photo provided by TankerTrackers.com, a site that tracks oil shipments.

Data held on public tracking sites paint an incomplete picture of the ship’s movements, and it had not disclosed its location since November 7 before it was seized. Maritime analysis firm Kpler also suggested that the ship was making ship-to-ship transfers.

U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi He described the ship as a “crude oil tanker” “It was used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.”

The US Treasury Department first sanctioned the ship in 2022 while it was sailing under the name Adisa and was accused of being part of an “international oil smuggling network”.

The Skipper sailed under the Guyanese flag, but the government was quick to issue a statement saying the 20-year-old tanker was “inadvertently flying the Guyanese Flag as it was not registered in Guyana.”

Experts told BBC Verify that the Skipper was likely part of a global network of oil tankers called the “dark fleet”, which are trying to evade oil sanctions by hiding their ownership, identity and travel history.

Under the UN agreement, all ships above a certain tonnage may be equipped with a tracking system called an Automatic Identification System (AIS). These trackers broadcast information about ships, including their location, and can be tracked on websites such as MarineTraffic.

But there is an incomplete and misleading public record of Skipper’s movements. According to MarineTraffic, the Skipper’s last known port of call was at the Iranian port of Soroosh on July 9, arriving there after stops in Iraq and the UAE.

But Kpler argues that this is part of Skipper’s pattern of misleading entries. Analysts at the firm said the ship had previously loaded crude oil from Venezuela and Iran and falsified its location via an onboard tracker, a process known as spoofing.

Venezuela has some of the world’s largest oil reserves, but exports were sanctioned in 2019 by the United States in an effort to force the transition of power from the administration of President Nicholas Maduro, who has been widely accused of election rigging.

The company stated that AIS showed the ship at Iraq’s Basra Oil Terminal on July 7 and 8, but terminal reports showed no record of the ship. Skipper instead loaded crude oil on Iran’s Kharg Island, Kpler said.

Skipper then sailed eastwards, following Kpler’s data, which suggested he had conducted ship-to-ship transfers between 11 and 13 August. The cargo was later unloaded in China, which Kpler said was “misrepresented”.

He returned via Iran and headed for the Caribbean. Skipper last announced its location on November 7, a few miles off the coast of Guyana. The ship only resurfaced after the US raid on 10 December.

In the interim, satellite imagery spotted by TankerTrackers.com and confirmed by BBC Verify shows Skipper was located in Venezuela’s Port of Jose on 18 November and was not visible on tracking sites at the time.

Since the imposition of sanctions, analysts say it has become common for ships to fake or disguise their location when loading oil in Venezuela.

Kpler analysts said the ship had loaded “at least 1.1 million barrels of Merey crude oil” at the terminal as of November 16 and listed Cuba as its destination.

There is also evidence that Skipper was involved in a ship-to-ship transfer with another ship on December 7, just days before he was boarded by US troops. Satellite images seen by Kpler appeared to show the change of one of the ships, identified by Kpler as the Captain.

The transfer took place just off the coast of Venezuela, near the city of Barcelona. According to MarineTraffic, Skipper was last spotted off the coast of Guyana weeks ago.

Kpler said such sanctions evasion activities are not unusual for Venezuelan oil exports. The company said tankers often transship their cargo off the coast of Malaysia before the oil is imported to China.

While such ship-to-ship transfers are not illegal or wrong, they are “extremely rare”, former Belgian naval lieutenant and analyst Frederik Van Lokeren told BBC Verify. Such activity is normally a sign that ships are trying to evade sanctions and transfer oil to ships not publicly involved in smuggling, the official said.

Mr Van Lokeren said Venezuela’s refining capacity had decreased significantly in recent years and was “dependent” on its allies in Iran and Russia to turn its crude into more commercially profitable products.

MarineTraffic lists the beneficial owner and operator as Thomarose Global Ventures Ltd, based in Nigeria, and the registered owner as Triton Navigation Corp, based in the Marshall Islands.

In 2022, the US Treasury said Triton was used by sanctioned Russian oil magnate Viktor Artemov to facilitate a global “oil smuggling network”.

At the time, U.S. officials said Mr. Artemov used a vast network of ships, often ambiguously registered, to transport Iranian oil.

The U.S. Treasury said in a statement that Triton “materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material or technological support to Artemov or provided goods or services to Artemov.”

BBC Verify is attempting to contact both companies for comment.