![COLUMN | Dark times for the dark fleet (and for seafarers generally) [Offshore Accounts]](http://media.assettype.com/bairdmaritime%2F2026-03-16%2Fsux7k4d6%2FUntitled.jpeg?w=480&auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max)
Three weeks ago, we covered the increasing risks to seafarers working in the "dark fleet" of tankers carrying Russian, Iranian and other sanctioned oil. At the time, those risks to seafarers were mainly legal, as France and the United States sought to try the masters of falsely flagged vessels in the dark fleet.
Beginning with the seizure of the very large crude carrier (VLCC) Skipper in December, at least five other dark fleet tankers had been seized by the US Government, including the Marinera (former Bella) in the North Atlantic in January and Veronica in the Caribbean. The master of Marinera, the Georgian national Avtandil Kalandadze, has been charged in the US and taken there from Scotland by the US Coast Guard, despite a court order requiring him to remain in the UK.
Today, the threats to all seafarers in the Arabian Gulf are far graver than the legal risks facing Mr Kalandadze, as we will examine. The war in Iran has elevated the danger facing seafarers in the Arabian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, as the Strait of Hormuz becomes the epicentre of the struggle between the US and Israel on one side, and Iran on the other. Hundreds of ships, thousands of seafarers, and the entire populations and economies of the Gulf Arab states are caught in the middle.
The Joint Maritime Intelligence Centre review of attacks on shipping described the situation adequately:
“The incidents involve a wide range of vessel types and flag states, with no consistent pattern of Western ownership linkage, suggesting that the current strike pattern reflects a campaign aimed at broad maritime disruption rather than selective vessel targeting. Recent incidents indicate that attacks are no longer confined to transit corridors and may occur across a broad operating area of the Arabian Gulf, including anchorages, Ship-to-Ship operations, and port approaches.”
Life as a seafarer has probably not been this risky in a generation. During the 1984 to 1988 Tanker War in the Arabian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, a total of 451 ships were attacked, primarily by Iraq, and over 300 seafarers were killed, injured, or reported missing as Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini attempted to cut off oil exports from each other, declaring various exclusion zones in which their forces could attack shipping.
Do we really want to go back to those dark days again?
But at the same time, the dark fleet is also being squeezed, legally and operationally.
Even as America has just issued a temporary waiver of sanctions for Russian oil already at sea until April 11, in an effort to curtail sharply higher petrol prices, Europe, belatedly, continues to pressure the dark fleet, as does India.
On February 6, the Indian Coast Guard seized three vessels off Mumbai in the Indian EEZ, ships allegedly associated with Iranian fuel shipments (“smuggling” in the words of the coast guard), being Asphalt Star, Chiltern and Stellar Ruby. All three had been sanctioned by the US in 2025.
The owner of the vessels, Dubai-based Indian citizen Jugwinder Singh Brar, himself subject to sanctions in the US, later threatened to file a defamation case against the Indian authorities for seizing his “innocent ships” as per Indian publication The Week.
Good luck with that.
Two days after our piece was written, prosecutors in the French port Brest demanded a one‑year prison sentence and a €150,000 (US$170,000) fine against Chen Zhangjie, the 39-year old Chinese national who was master of the falsely Benin-flagged tanker Boracay, which was detained by the French authorities after being boarded by commandos in October.
Mr Chen was charged with failing to comply with French Navy orders and the court is expected to reach judgement at the end of this month. When challenged during police questioning about the fake Benin flag his vessel purported to be sailing under, he claimed during police questioning in custody that the flag had not been flown because it was raining, as per French media coverage.
Really?
Since then, on March 1, the Belgian Navy boarded and diverted the 2008-built tanker Ethera to Zeebrugge on suspicion of sailing under "false flag and false documents." As per AIS, the vessel remains there now.
Sweden has also joined the move to enforce registration and safety standards on the dark fleet. Last week, in a rather melodramatic helicopter interdiction, the Swedish Coast Guard boarded the 2007-built tanker Sea Owl I, which was on the European Union sanctions list, and was believed to be heading for the Russian port of Primorsk in ballast.
The Swedish Coast Guard issued the following comment on its website:
“The tanker Sea Owl I flies the Comorian flag. The coast guard suspects that it is not included in their ship register, that it is sailing under a false flag and that there is therefore no flag state that can guarantee safety on board… A preliminary investigation into suspected violations of the maritime act regarding lack of seaworthiness has been initiated.”
On March 6, the Swedish Coast Guard had also arrested the 96-metre-long, 1997-built general cargo ship Caffa, with a photogenic speedboat boarding of the vessel whilst underway, and took the ship to Trelleborg. The unnamed master of Caffa is suspected of several violations of the Swedish Maritime Act and the use of false documents, as per the authorities.
A ship like Caffa poses a big cost problem for the coast guard and the Swedish Government. It is possible that the ship, which is 29 years old and allegedly last under the Guinean registry, will be declared unseaworthy and abandoned by its owner, making it an expensive liability for the government to remove and scrap, although the costs of scrapping the ship in Turkey will be less than the clean-up costs of an oil spill if it ruptures its bunker tanks or runs aground.
We had wondered who was bearing the costs of Marinera, the formerly false Guyanese-flagged VLCC taken to Scotland in January in ballast. Court documents relating to the petition to sell Skipper suggest that the arrests of shadow fleet vessels are taking a considerable toll on the taxpayer.
Skipper was seized with a full cargo of 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan crude on board, which had to be lightered off when it was taken to Galveston in Texas. As Richard Simpson pointed out, the US Government has claimed US$47 million of costs relating to the vessel since it was seized three months ago.
Fortunately, it has cargo on board that can be sold to offset the costs, but these costs are mind-blowing, and it is not clear how so much expense could have been run up on a single ship.
The more dark fleet ships are detained, the more western governments will discover that enforcement of the law of the sea against stateless vessels and enforcement of safety standards has a price, albeit one far lower than the people of Ukraine are paying in the face of Russian attacks funded by oil sales, and a far lower one than a single oil spill would cost.
However, seizing a dozen or so dark fleet ships is a drop in the ocean, as the heroes at Tanker Trackers report that the dark fleet has ballooned to over 1,400 vessels, including 230 VLCCs and 153 Suezmax ships, mostly over twenty years of age.
One of the recurrent patterns of the dark fleet has been the claim that Russian security officers are posted to the vessels. This was a claim first covered extensively by Danwatch last November, when its investigative reporter Jakob Kjøgx Bohr interviewed Danish pilot Bjarne Cæsar Skinnerup.
Mr Skinnerup reported that on many of the dark fleet vessels transiting to and from the Baltic, he and his colleagues found, “Russian men in what look like military uniforms, breathing down the pilots’ necks. Important papers that mysteriously disappear. Lack of cooperation and a dismissive tone.”
This was also a claim made again in the investigation into suspicious behaviour of an additional Russian officer on board the general cargo vessel HAV Dolphin, which we covered in December.
In court in Brest, it was confirmed such Russian security officers were also on Boracay. Among those on board were two Russian nationals employed by the Moran Security Group, a Russian private security company with a wonderful and bizarre gallery of its work. Who knew so many mercenaries private security contractors could fit into a fast rescue boat?
One of these Moran security agents on Boracay was, as per the French press, a former police officer who had worked for the now-dissolved Russian mercenary group Wagner, notorious for its involvement in war crimes. Captain Chen stated in court that he did not know what the two Russian security officers were doing there.
Last week, our favourite anti-corruption site the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project produced a detailed report on the use of Russian state agents on dark fleet tankers. Its investigators analysed crew lists from sanctioned tankers across 20 voyages and found the following:
“Vessels departing Russia's Baltic Sea ports now regularly carry two-man teams with military backgrounds. Of the 17 Russian men aboard these ships who lacked maritime credentials, 13 were found to have links to the Wagner Group or state security organisations such as Russia’s military spy service, the GRU.”
They then went on to name and cross-reference the security guards against social media and tried to contact them. Ruslan Pogorelov was photographed giving the thumbs up on a ship at sea, as well as at a Transnistrian Ministry of Defence weightlifting competition. One of the guards, Dmitrii Frolov, threatened to turn the journalists over the to FSB (Russian state security service) if they persisted in questioning him, whilst Artem Tomilov said his time at sea “was no longer relevant.” Nice answer.
Clearly, from the recent seizures of dark fleet vessels, two probably armed guards are not going to be any use against American special forces rappelling onto the vessel from helicopters, or Swedish commandos boarding from a speedboat, let alone against the French frigate that stopped Boracay.
So, what are they doing? Polishing their rifles and taking ill-advised selfies?
My suspicion is that the guards are there to prevent malfeasance from the crew of the dark fleet vessels. Joining a dark fleet vessel is a risk for crewmembers as we have highlighted, but repeated ship-to-ship transfers, periods when the AIS is turned off and undocumented cargo loading and discharge provides ample room for “funny business.”
My guess is that the burly former mercenaries like Mr Pogorelov and Mr Tomilov are on board to keep the dark fleet crew in line, rather than the protect the ships from interdiction by western navies and coast guards.
If you are running an oil smuggling operation in the face of sanctions, the last thing you need is your risk-taking crew stealing the product from you. There is no honour amongst thieves.
One of the most satisfying pieces of news over the last, miserable month has been the British Government placing sanctions on Maritime Mutual, the New Zealand/Liechtenstein/Gibraltar-based insurer of the dark fleet. We had flagged this privately held company as an important intermediary providing blue cards and insurance paperwork “facultively” to the dark fleet tankers back in 2024.
At the time, we made it very clear that, “we are not alleging any wrongdoing by the company, its directors, its employees, or any of its affiliates and associates.” Now we don't have to make that warning, because the British Government has actually made those allegations and imposed sanctions.
The British sanctions imposed on Maritime Mutual include asset freezing and director disqualification, and a winding down of its Gibraltar-based underwriting business. Oh no!
Paul Carsten and the excellent team from Reuters provided more details on the depth of involvement by the business set up and run by Paul Rankin and his family last October, just after the New Zealand police raided the company as part of an investigation into its activities. The full Reuters piece is available here and provides detailed evidence of how dark fleet tankers can appear to have insurance without actually have any meaningful cover in place.
It is not clear what personal consequences, if any, will come about for Paul Rankin or the family members he employed in key positions in Maritime Mutual.
Of course, ships in the Black Sea have been targeted by both Ukraine and Russia in their conflict, with Ukraine striking false flagged Gambian tankers in ballast heading to load crude at Russian ports with sea drones, and attacking tankers loading at the Baltic terminal at Ust-Luga from the air, and possibly with limpet mines, whilst Russia has targeted ships loading cargo in Odesa.
A year ago, four seafarers were killed by Russian drones on board the bulker MJ Pinard as it was loading grain to deliver to Algeria, then on Christmas Day, Russian forces fired drone and missile strikes against Odesa's port and industrial facilities, killing one person.
In December, Ukraine extended the attacks on the dark fleet away from the Russian coastline with a stunning drone attack on the Omani-registered tanker Qendil in the Mediterranean.
Last week, Ukraine scored another spectacular success in its campaign against the dark fleet, again without harming any of the crew, although one suspects they might be severely psychologically traumatised.
Arctic Metagaz, carrying LNG from the Arctic port of Murmansk, was attacked on March 3 by Ukrainian naval drones launched from the Libyan coast. There was a massive explosion as the LNG ignited in at least two of the ship's tanks, resulting in serious damage to the vessel, but the ship remained afloat and all 30 crewmembers and security agents were able to abandon ship into life rafts safely.
Yesterday, news agency AFP provided spectacular footage of the wreck drifting fifty nautical miles from Malta.
It is unclear how much LNG and fuel remained aboard the tanker, but Malta’s transport authority has issued a warning to all shipping to keep at least five nautical miles away from Arctic Metagaz at all times.
Aside from arrest, detention or an altercation with a former Wagner soldier, crews can now add being blown up in a fireball as one of the risks of taking the thirty pieces of silver offered by President Vladimir Putin to serve in the Dark Fleet.
Sadly, thousands of seafarers have found themselves facing the same threats, but involuntarily, as the war between Israel, the US and Iran continues to endanger ships and mariners in the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Gulf.
The conflict has seen increased attacks on shipping in the Arabian Gulf, including the use of uncrewed sea drones to attack tankers off Iraq, which struck the Bahamas-flagged crude oil tanker Sonangol Namibe owned by the state oil company of Angola, while it was anchored near Iraq’s Khor al Zubair port, killing one crewmember.
Then, Al Jazeera reported two further sea drone attacks in Iraqi waters near Basra last Wednesday, the Marshall Islands-flagged Panamax product tankers Safesea Vishnu and Zefyros, which had loaded fuel cargoes in Iraq. One Indian seafarer was reported killed on Safesea Vishnu, as per the Indian media.
Other vessels, including a Precious Shipping-owned, Thai-flagged bulk carrier and the 6,700TEU Ocean Network Express containership ONE Majesty, have also been struck with missles, drones or other projectiles.
A full listing of the 20 merchant marine vessels attacked in the Gulf in the Iranian conflict correct as of Friday can be found here. At the time of writing there are seven confirmed merchant seafarer fatalities in the war – one on Safesea Vishnu, four from the Abu Dhabi tug Mussafah 2, one on MKD Vyom and one on Skylight. Additionally, the three mariners missing from Mayuree Naaree are presumed to have been killed in the engine room, and one seafarer is missing from Skylight.
It is easy to forget that in the Second World War, around 60,000 Allied merchant mariners were killed, including 36,000 from Britain. Over 10,000 members of the Britsh Mercantile Marine lost their lives in the First World War.
Whenever there is a war, seafarers find themselves at risk of becoming collateral casualties. With oil prices spiking to over US$100 because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, it is worth remembering that nobody signed onto any of the civilian ships in the Gulf expecting to be killed by a drone or missile, and nobody should have to work in a war zone against their will. There has been enough killing already.
"These ships should go through the Strait of Hormuz and show some guts," US President Donald Trump said last week. "There’s nothing to be afraid of."
Actually, there is, clearly. It seems Russian dark fleet owners have turned to Moran for their security, whilst the Americans have entrusted theirs to a… similar sounding word.
Background reading
If you speak Russian and are bored of life, you can sign up to join the Moran group as a security officer for the dark fleet here. The training looks fun.
