A Chinese “shadow fleet” of tankers, supported by Iranian lawyers, is involved in transporting oil from Iran, Venezuela and Russia in circumvention of sanctions, the British publication Financial Times reports.
According to a joint investigation by the publication and the American NGO C4ADS, the fleet was formed no later than 2019 through the efforts of Iranian lawyers and accountants. Since then, it has been supplying oil to China from sanctioned countries – Iran, Venezuela, and, since autumn 2022, from Russia.
The FT suggests that the fleet is controlled by an unknown Chinese beneficiary, hidden behind a network of shell companies in China, offshore companies in Panama and the British Virgin Islands, as well as through Swiss intermediaries in the financial and legal spheres.
The fleet includes more than 30 vessels: some have made one voyage, while others are used on a permanent basis. The total value of the fleet exceeds $1 billion, and the volume of oil transported is estimated at $9.6 billion. Of this, about 50% went to Iran, 25% to Russia, and another 20% to Venezuela. Almost all of the oil was delivered to China.
Some of the vessels and their nominal owners were subject to secondary US sanctions for participating in oil deliveries in circumvention of restrictions against Iran, Venezuela, and Russia.
Official Beijing says that it does not recognize the US sanctions, considering them unilateral and illegal. This was recalled by the Chinese Foreign Ministry in a comment for the FT. Attempts by journalists to contact the formal owners of the tankers showed that the addresses either do not exist or lead to fictitious persons.
The investigation also emphasizes that Russia, one of the first recipients of Iranian oil, has its own shadow fleet of more than a thousand vessels. These ships are regularly detained and placed on sanctions lists. According to estimates for the first half of 2024, about 45% of Russian oil exports were carried out using such a fleet.
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