Iran Expands Use of Fraudulent Ship Registries to Evade Sanctions, OFAC Issues Alert
Windward, a maritime AI company, has identified 278 Iranian-linked ships using fraudulent ship registries across 23 different flags between August 6 and November 5. This represents an expansion of Iran's strategy to evade international sanctions, moving beyond tankers to include other vessel types over the past 18 months. Nicaragua is the most frequently used fraudulent registry, accounting for 53 ships, followed by Anguilla with 39. The majority of these vessels, 68%, are tankers, with 171 of them already sanctioned. The average age of these ships is 26 years. The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued an alert on November 4, highlighting the increasing reliance on false flags by vessel owners and operators to evade U.S. sanctions, particularly those involved in trading Iranian-origin petroleum or petrochemicals. OFAC also targeted a network, primarily based in Chandigarh, India, for allegedly selling these fraudulent flags to Iranian ships.
