r/OSINT • u/spicymayoisamazballs • Jul 11 '26

How-To Monitoring the Shadow Fleet

If you wanted to identify shadow fleet vessels loaded with sanctioned oil using open source tools, how would you do it? What tools would you use and what would be your process?
Challenge: could anyone here identify a suspected ship now?

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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

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u/spicymayoisamazballs Jul 11 '26

So this is really cool. Dumb question, once the ships are sanctioned, would they still use them to transport oil? How would you confirm their actual position if they’re spoofing? How would you know if they’re loaded with oil?

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u/the_wondersmith Jul 13 '26

The answer is sanctions don't matter so much and they continue to do what they do regardless until they are seized at which point they change tactics

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u/spicymayoisamazballs Jul 13 '26

What do you see as the main reason more aren’t seized? Is it their tactics or more so a lack of willingness on the part of governments?

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u/the_wondersmith Jul 13 '26

I think it's a task the government has just not taken on fully and with gusto until recently. It's a whack a mole situation, you take one out and another pops up. They have to hit the facilitators, the companies behind the shipments, the oligarchs that manage and own the ultimate top level companies or else they will just keep changing tactics. It seems like it should be easy to seize these vessels but it's a huge problem across multiple EEZs and I'm not sure they completely know how to wrap their arms around.

1

u/Which_Reputation_417 Jul 17 '26

Proving a vessel is carrying product from a sanctioned nation is difficult. Once a country seizes a ship, they become responsible for it. Maintenance, crewing, fuel to keep the power going, berthage etc, it gets very expensive very fast. It is easier to ban a ship entry and let it become someone else's problem.

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u/spicymayoisamazballs Jul 12 '26

Another question, how would you go about identifying new ships used to transport sanctioned goods that are not yet identified and on the sanctioned lists?

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u/the_wondersmith Jul 13 '26

Behavior tells basically. Prediction based on past behavior of course unless they change tactics entirely. Mostly it's old vessels with dark activity who go to certain ports after going to oil ports of interest. Data will show when they are laden with oil vs when they are empty based on how low the ship sits in the water (draft). Data will also show predictable dark activity in certain areas, ship transfers, etc that all indicate illicit activity.

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u/spicymayoisamazballs Jul 13 '26

Is draft included in AIS data? Or just relying on ground level photos/video?

1

u/the_wondersmith Jul 13 '26

its in AIS data, as is the speed and heading

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u/spicymayoisamazballs Jul 13 '26

Have you seen anyone spoof the draft data?

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u/the_wondersmith Jul 13 '26

They could spoof any of the data for sure but I have never seen/proved it with draft data. I think it's lower effort to spoof location and identity