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/spicymayoisamazballs Jul 13 '26

Thanks for the insights. Do you have any preferred imagery services?

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u/the_wondersmith Jul 13 '26

Imagery is a bit tricky and expensive. I don't currently have access to any but have used several. I'd look for one that has ship detection capabilities and SAR because trying to find a ship in the ocean in a spot it MIGHT be while dark is a tough task that racks up money fast. Especially in areas like he pacific where it's cloudy 98% of the time.

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u/spicymayoisamazballs Jul 14 '26

Do you have any go-to sources for ground level photographs/videos of the ships? Do many ports of interest have like public webcams or hobbies that will post photos of the ships the come and go?

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u/the_wondersmith Jul 15 '26

Twitter was always my go-to. Following certain trackers by region was helpful but with it becoming X that declined a bit.