Russia is tampering with voyage documents and vessels’ geolocation to evade sanctions on grain and oil

Loading process of a cargo into hold of bulk carrier at sea (photo credit: Greenshoots Communications / Alamy Stock Photo)

19 October 2022

In order to avoid international sanctions, the smuggling activities on grain and oil reached a new level around the Crimean Peninsula and the Strait of Kerch. Vessels engaging in sanctions evasion violate international law and have been fined as a result.

By Henrik Shuette, Security Analyst Intern

Smuggling within the Black Sea has received increased attention since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Open-source intelligence has recorded a wide range of activities, including faked paperwork and manipulated AIS tracking. The most well-documented cases concern the transportation of grain from Russian-held territories in Ukraine, and Russian oil.

Smuggling activities on grain occur around the Crimean Peninsula and the Strait of Kerch to bypass international sanctions. The practices include tampering with documents for the vessel’s route and concealing the vessel’s geolocation by switching off (“going dark”) or manipulating its Automatic Identification System (AIS). In order to transport grain from Ukrainian territory, vessels turn off their tracking system in the northern Black Sea area, and then approach the deepwater Port Sevastopol at Crimea for loading. From anchorage points close to the nearby Port Kavkaz in Russia, Ukrainian and Russian grain gets mixed through ship-to-ship transfer. Its origin becomes hardly identifiable afterwards.

Crude oil coming from Russia is mainly being transferred around the coast of Greece, Malta, Gibraltar, and the mid-North Atlantic Ocean. From there, the cargo gets transported to ports around the world. Shipments often head to ports in Turkey, Syria, or Libya. Manipulated GPS coordinates make routes seem illogical, once they leave a port fully loaded and return empty with no recorded stops. In other cases, ships go dark and seemingly reappear at far distances that are impossible to cover during the time their AIS is turned off. Additionally, odd routes and abrupt draft changes indicate manipulations of the system and participation in the STS transfer of sanctioned crude oil. Tankers in international waters in the mid-North Atlantic serve as floating storage, drifting in the open sea for months, getting close to other ships, and changing draughts frequently. Some oil tankers who came close to the floating storages were observed to take costly detours around the Cape of Good Hope towards the Indian Ocean, most likely to avoid checkpoints in the Gibraltar Strait and Suez Canal.

Vessels engaging in these practices of sanctions evasion are conducting illegal activities under international law and have been sanctioned. Activities of going dark in the Black Sea or STS-transfers with goods of unknown origin hence poses the risk of disruption in the supply chain through delays and fines. Given the current global demand and the disruptions to supply that the war has caused, smuggling operations are expected to continue in at least the near future.

MARITIME SECURITY REPORTS:

There are several Risk Intelligence reports that can help you assess the risk of a specific route, or provide further background for decision-making in the form of a threat assessment

The Voyage Risk Assessment zooms in on a vessel and its voyage specifics, and offers an independent third party view on necessary security measures, wheras the Monthly Intelligence Report offers comprehensive analysis of recent incidents and a threat assessment for three main regions on a subscription basis. 

For maritime shipping operators with vessels in the Black Sea, please see our weekly Northern Black Sea Intelligence Report here: