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A “dark fleet” of 1,000 people of oil tankers down sanctions has emerged as a new target for the United States and Ukraine, says a senior maritime intelligence analyst.
Michelle Wiese Bockmann warned that the aging fleet presents geopolitical risks and threats of $1 billion oil spills, with recent US seizures in Venezuela and Ukrainian drone strikes in the Black Sea marking a turning point for both nations in their efforts.
“There are about 1,000 vessels around the world that trade in sanctioned crude oil tankers that contain Iranian, Venezuelan and Russian sanctioned oil,” Bockmann told Fox News Digital.
“These ships are a salvation for these regimes, because they are used to transport oil to finance the war in Ukraine, and also give money to the illegal regime of Maduro,” he added.
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The US seized the Skipper, a Venezuelan oil tanker. (Planet Labs PBC/Reuters)
“This is a new problem for the United States, and now Ukraine has signaled that they will target these ships in the same way,” he said. “There is a new strategy to deal with this dark fleet, which is the lifeblood of the sanctioned oil revenues, and now under attack from the United States and Ukraine. The strategy is all about countering what we call. gray zone aggression.”
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the capture of an American oil tanker by the United States off the coast of Venezuela. (Planet Labs PBC/Handout via Reuters)
Recent Ukrainian naval drone strikes have disabled several tankers in the Black Sea, including the Dashan, part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet that Ukraine says helps Moscow export oil in defiance of sanctions. according to Reuters.
“It is dangerous and could be interpreted as a form of gray area aggression to continue to keep the oil income flowing,” said Bockmann.
“This is a billion-dollar oil spill catastrophe waiting to happen,” he added, pointing to the environmental and navigational risks laid by poorly maintained vessels, without insurance.
Footage of the Dashan tanker, allegedly part of the Russian shadow fleet struck by Ukraine. (Security Service Official/Handout via Reuters)
She said that a subset of “about 350 to 400 ships at any given time are not only sanctioned, but flying false flags, which is dangerous,” because false registration leaves ships stateless and uninsured, putting crews at risk.
“This is a huge problem for maritime safety, it is a threat to the environment, and it involves the well-being of the crew,” said Bockmann.
These vessels, he said, are typically “old” and used only for sanctioned oil trades. Many also “manipulate AIS” to show they are in one place when they are actually somewhere else.
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Dashan, a tanker from Russia’s shadow fleet, transits the Bosphorus en route to the Black Sea in Istanbul. (Yoruk Isik/Reuters)
“They use false flags, but also, spoofing and manipulating their AIS to show that it is somewhere when it is not. These ships also went to fraudulent records which does not exist, which means that they have no insurance,” he said. “Their seaworthiness certificates are not valid, and they relied on international maritime conventions to have what is called the right of innocent passage in order not to be intercepted.”
Bockmann said US forces used legal tools including Article 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which allows the boarding of stateless vessels, to stop these vessels.
“It is my belief that they used Article 110, and they got on board that ship, and they absolutely have the right to remove that ship from world trade,” he said.
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Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a roundtable meeting on Antifa with President Donald Trump in the State Dining Room at the White House, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Evan Vucci/AP)
In the CaribbeanUS forces recently seized the tanker Skipper, sanctioned in 2022 and found to be masking its location, under a federal warrant as part of a wider campaign to disrupt illicit oil shipments.
“The recent Venezuelan tanker was carrying 1.8 million barrels of uninsured oil, so it’s a multibillion-dollar maritime disaster waiting to happen,” Bockmann said.
As reported by Fox News Digital, on December 12 he saw the Attorney General Pam Bondi It frames the US seizure of a Venezuelan crude oil tanker as a sanctions enforcement action rooted in a federal court order.
Meanwhile, in the Black Sea, Ukraine has targeted several alleged “shadow fleet” tankers with marine drones, according to Reuters.
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“The three tankers that were targeted by Ukraine are all in ballast, which means they were not carrying oil,” Bockmann said.
“This was carefully chosen, and they also falsely marked, as in the recent case of the three tanks attacked in Ukraine. This flag was Gambia. In the case of the United States of Skipper, the flag was Guyana,” said Bockmann.
Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
