Vikings

In 2017, several merchant ships sailing near the Black Sea they began to detect something impossible on their screens: dozens of ships appeared sailing over a Russian airport located inland. For days, captains and maritime analysts tried to understand what was happening until a suspicion arose: someone was deliberately manipulating GPS signals on one of the busiest shipping routes on the planet. The ghost fleet of oil. we have been counting for months. Western sanctions against Russia, Iran and Venezuela have ended up creating something that just a few years ago seemed like something out of maritime espionage novels: a gigantic “ghost fleet” of aging tankers crossing entire oceans hiding your positionfalsifying documents and surfing foutside normal systems of control. It is estimated that more than a thousand vessels already participate in this opaque trade in sanctioned crude oil, a global network where ships constantly change flag, owner and operating company as they transport millions of barrels away from Western surveillance. The result is a parallel maritime world made up of rusty oil tankers, shell companies, cryptocurrency payments and crews recruited almost blindly to work on increasingly dangerous routes. The Financial Times said The most striking thing is that the business has forced the recovery of navigation practices that seemed buried by modern technology: there are ships that deliberately turn off their location systems and cross entire areas practically “in the dark”, guiding themselves with radar and manual calculations as if they had gone back centuries in time. Sail like ghosts. One of the most surprising details of this clandestine business is the way in which many oil tankers voluntarily disappear from the map. To avoid being tracked, ships they disconnect their transponders AIS, the system that automatically reports your position to other ships and maritime authorities. some even they falsify coordinates to appear browsing in completely different places. Crew members of these tankers they explain that it is common to see “ghost” ships on screens… vessels that apparently are there, but that in reality do not exist where their signs indicate. Others disappear completely for days on end while loading oil at Iranian terminals or carrying out secret crude oil transfers on the high seas. In some cases, GPS interference near Iran literally force sailors to navigate “like the Vikings”, using radar, experience and basic calculations to move authentic floating cities hundreds of meters in length with hardly any reliable references. The Bella 1 and the Atlantic chase. The history of Bella 1 It perfectly sums up how far this parallel world has come. The enormous supertanker, old, rusty and managed by practically invisible companies, ended up becoming the protagonist of a transatlantic chase with the US Coast Guard. The crew had been recruited through normal maritime employment advertisements and many they didn’t even know that the ship was linked to sanctions related to Iran. The situation exploded when they discovered that the real destination was not the Dutch Caribbean, but Venezuelaand that the ship planned to change flag in the middle of the trip to protect itself under the Russian flag. From there it began a surreal escape across the North Atlantic as the Bella 1 tried to escape from US authorities, with the crew trapped in the middle of an international operation that seemed like a mix of a geopolitical thriller and a military video game. A business built on old boats. A large part of this clandestine fleet is made up of oil tankers that should be on their way to scrapping. Many far exceed the twenty years of service recommended for this type of boats and present extremely precarious conditions. The sailors describe corroded decks, dilapidated cabins, broken systems and equipment that works thanks to improvised repairs made during the voyage. However, it is precisely these old ships that end up fueling sanctioned trade because They are cheap to buy and easy to hide behind networks of shell companies. The problem is that deterioration greatly increases the risk of accidents, fires, groundings and spills, especially when these vessels sail without recognized insurance and constantly operate at the limit to maximize profits. The war has reached the sea. The pressure on the ghost fleet has grown brutally since the outbreak of the Ukrainian war and the escalation with Iran. The United States has gone beyond simply imposing sanctions to directly intercept suspicious oil tankers even on the high seas. Europe start doing the same with ships linked to Russian oil. At the same time, Ukraine has taken the maritime war a step further using naval drones to attack oil tankers linked to Moscow’s energy revenues. The iimages of burning ships off Turkey, Malta or Novorossiysk are increasingly frequent. The sea has become another front of the global economic conflict: it is no longer just about blocking exports, but about physically pursuing the ships that keep this clandestine trade alive. Sailors trapped in the gray zone. The most striking thing is that many crew members are not spies or criminals, but ordinary sailors trapped inside a sgigantic and opaque system. He explained in his report on the FT that most accept these jobs looking for quick promotions or better job opportunities, without really knowing who controls the ship or what cargo they will end up transporting. some discover too late who are working for networks linked to sanctioned oil, Iranian militias or companies indirectly associated with Russia. And when things go wrong, they are the ones caught between governments, intelligence services and special forces. The Times remembered that the final scene of Bella 1 sums up perfectly that reality: American commandos boarding the oil tanker in the middle of the North Atlantic while the sailors, locked up under armed guard, played cards and watched movies with American soldiers in a situation as absurd as it was revealing. Ocean increasingly opaque. The situation reflects a much deeper change in maritime trade global. Massive sanctions have created enormous incentives to build parallel networks of transportation outside the traditional … Read more