Dark Fleet & מטוסי סמים

The Dark Fleet — Maritime עקיפת סנקציות

What Is the Dark Fleet…

The “dark fleet” (also called the “shadow fleet” or “ghost fleet”) refers to a global network of aging oil tankers that transport crude from sanctioned nations—primarily Russia, Iran, and Venezuela—while evading international tracking and insurance frameworks. These vessels share common characteristics:

• Aged tonnage: Most are 15–25 years old, well past the age accepted by mainstream insurers and classification societies.
• Opaque ownership: Registered through shell companies in jurisdictions like the UAE, Seychelles, Liberia, and Hong Kong.
• Flags of convenience: Registered under Guinea, Comoros, Panama, Togo, Cameroon, Bolivia, and other regulatory havens that provide minimal oversight.
• No Western P&I insurance: Operating without the Protection & Indemnity coverage required by major ports and the International Group of P&I Clubs.

The shadow fleet expanded by roughly 45% in the year ending mid-2025, driven largely by the cascading sanctions from the Russia-Ukraine war. Estimates suggest 218 tankers were involved in Venezuela-related crude movements in a single 12-month period, with close to 80% exhibiting at least one “dark activity.” Factoring in ship-to-ship (STS) transfers, up to 10% of the global tanker fleet may be associated with Venezuelan cargo transport.

AIS Manipulation and Deceptive Shipping Practices

The vessels tracked in this investigation employ several layers of electronic deception:

A striking example: when U.S. forces seized the VLCC Skipper off the Venezuelan coast on December 10, 2025, its AIS transponder was broadcasting coordinates placing it near Guyana and Suriname—500 nautical miles from its actual position at Venezuela’s José terminal, where satellite imagery confirmed it was loading sanctioned crude.

ODINT Vessel Catalog

Sanctioned Vessels

The following vessels have been identified through monitoring as sanctioned by one or more of OFAC (USA), OFSI (UK), or the European Union, and were observed operating in or near Venezuelan waters:

כלי שיט של הצי האפל (Unverified/ODINT-Tracked)

These vessels were identified through ODINT monitoring in Caribbean waters with behavioral anomalies consistent with dark fleet operations:

The Cuba-bound vessels are particularly significant. The Venezuelan regime uses a clandestine network of tankers to maintain crude shipments to Havana, with a single Cuban-flagged tanker tracked moving over 300,000 barrels from Venezuela in one month—vastly exceeding official export figures.

ODINT uses its own tools to track these vessels

PDVSA State Fleet

Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA operates its own fleet of tankers through its subsidiary PDV Marina, supplemented by foreign-flagged vessels under exclusive charter. These vessels shuttle crude between Venezuela’s eight major oil ports (José, Amuay, Cardón, Puerto La Cruz, El Palito, Bajo Grande, and others) and handle export loadings:

The full PDVSA fleet catalog includes dozens of additional vessels (PITIGUAO, MORICHAL, BOYACA, MARA, CATATUMBO, ZULIA, GUAJIRA, CUMAREBO, PUNTA CARDON, AMUAY BAY, SAN FELIX, ANZOATEGUI, ORINOCO, CARIBE, LA GUAIRA, PUERTO CABELLO, PUERTO SUCRE, LOS ROQUES, and others). Ten foreign-flagged vessels were found sailing exclusively between Venezuela’s eight oil ports on behalf of PDV Marina, most registered in Panama and Comoros by shipping companies from the UAE.

Chevron-Licensed Vessels

Following the restricted U.S. license granted to Chevron in July 2025, a fleet of tankers resumed operations at Venezuelan terminals.

Additional Chevron-chartered vessels in the operational fleet include BOSCAN CARRIER, HAMACA CARRIER, GEORGE T, SEA LION, AVON, HIGHLANDER, POINT FORTIN, NABUCCO, CARIBBEAN PIONEER, CEDAR, MONGOOSE, PEREGRINE, HARRIER, FALCON, and CONDOR. Reuters and LSEG data confirmed at least five vessels navigating toward Venezuelan waters simultaneously in August 2025, with additional ships staging at Aruba—a common hub for העברות ספינה-לספינה of Venezuelan crude.

The Narco Planes — Aviation ODINT

Venezuela as a Narco-Aviation Hub

Venezuela has long served as a critical air transit corridor for Colombian cocaine moving toward North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Since 2019, Venezuelan armed forces have officially destroyed at least 21 aircraft within the country’s territory—12 confirmed to be U.S.-registered. By 2025, that figure climbed to at least 39 “narco planes” neutralized that year alone, according to official Venezuelan military statements.

The Cartel de los Soles facilitates this air corridor through a network of corrupt military officers who approve departures and arrivals of drug-carrying aircraft, manage aerial radar coverage to create “blind spots,” and control clandestine airstrips across border regions. Former First Lady Cilia Flores’s pilot, Yazenky Lamas, was extradited to the United States for providing air traffic codes that allowed cocaine planes to impersonate commercial flights—he was linked to “hundreds of drug flights.”

Regime and State Aircraft

The ODINT-tracked aircraft catalog reveals a complex hierarchy of state, regime, and private aviation assets:

Presidential and Senior Leadership Fleet

The seizure of Maduro’s aircraft represents a critical OSINT milestone. In September 2024, U.S. authorities seized a Dassault Falcon 900 described as “Venezuela’s Air Force One,” which had been purchased for $13 million through a shell company in violation of sanctions. In February 2025, Secretary Rubio personally oversaw the seizure of a second Dassault Falcon 2000EX (YV-3360) in Santo Domingo, which yielded intelligence including transponder data, flight manifests, and Venezuelan Air Force personnel records.

CONVIASA — The Sanctioned State Airline

CONVIASA (Consorcio Venezolano de Industrias Aeronáuticas y Servicios Aéreos) was designated under Executive Order 13884 in August 2019 and formally added to the SDN list in February 2020. The U.S. accused the airline of shuttling regime officials to North Korea, Cuba, and Iran. The OFAC listing includes 37+ aircraft: Airbus A319/A340, Boeing 737s, ATR42/72s, Embraer ERJ190s, Cessna 208 Grand Caravans, and DHC-7s.

Notable CONVIASA-linked tracked aircraft:

• YV3397: Ex-Conviasa, sanctioned; tracked to Isla Tortuga — a small Venezuelan island historically associated with clandestine operations
• ETR823/ETR8949H: Estelar airline aircraft with irregular behavior; the state-linked carrier operates Guyana routes

DGCIM Military Intelligence Aircraft

Entourage and Political VIP Fleet

The ODINT data reveals a substantial fleet of private aircraft dedicated to regime VIP transport:

• YV3554, YV3399, YV3226, YV3218, YV3006, YV2630, YV3381, YV3562: Political entourage aircraft used for domestic regime travel
• YV1794: High-frequency regime usage
• YV2689: Regime aircraft reportedly used by Kimberly Delgado — a politically connected figure
• YV3173: Linked to Aristóbulo Istúriz faction / Barquisimeto chavistas

ODINT uses its own tools to track suspicious aircraft in Latin America

Narco-Linked and Suspicious Aircraft

סחר בסמים and Gold Smuggling Indicators

Ghost Aircraft and Identity Manipulation

The case of YV657T impersonating ETR823 mirrors maritime זיוף AIS tactics: a private aircraft broadcasting the identity of a commercial Estelar Airlines flight to mask its true nature. This technique was documented in the Yazenky Lamas prosecution, where narco pilots used air traffic codes to impersonate commercial flights.

International Routes of Concern

Convergence — Where the Dark Fleet Meets the Narco Planes

The Cartel de los Soles Nexus

The maritime and aviation networks documented in this investigation are not parallel systems—they are integrated components of the same state-criminal apparatus. The U.S. designated the Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in November 2025. But it was not just the cartel that used this corridor; different governments also used it to exploit resources, including the United States:

• Maritime corridors: Military officers approve ship departures, manage port access, and coordinate with dark fleet operators to export sanctioned crude.
• Aerial corridors: The same military structures manage radar coverage, issue air traffic codes, and operate clandestine airstrips to facilitate drug flights.
• Shared logistics: The Cuba-bound supply chain operates through both maritime (dark fleet tankers like CUBAN ALLY and GULF TRADER) and aviation (YV3404 constant Cuba flights, T777PR PDVSA-Cuba, YV654T Díaz-Canel aircraft) channels.

Key Geographic Nodes

The ODINT data clusters around several critical nodes:

• Paraguaná Peninsula (Amuay/Cardón): Venezuela’s largest refinery complex; arrival point for sanctioned tankers like XANTHOS EOS
• José Terminal (Anzoátegui): Primary crude export terminal; where the Skipper was loading when seized
• Gulf of Venezuela / Lake Maracaibo: Western oil export zone and narco-plane interception corridor
• Paria Peninsula / Eastern Caribbean: STS transfer zone for dark fleet vessels
• Aruba / Curaçao: Staging area for Chevron STS transfers and dark fleet operations
• Ciudad Guayana / Bolívar State: Gold mining zone; aircraft YV3025, YV3088, YV0138 operate here
• Cuba: Destination for both dark fleet oil tankers and regime aircraft

The UAE Connection

A recurring pattern across both maritime and aviation: the United Arab Emirates serves as the primary corporate haven for sanctions-evasion infrastructure. Asia Charm Limited FTZ alone operates 13 tankers in Venezuelan waters, and multiple other UAE-based firms (Kroeger Tankers, Julius Capital, Issa Shipping) manage sanctioned or stealth vessels. The UAE’s regulatory environment has enabled these operations to continue despite international scrutiny.

What ODINT Brings to the Table

The ODINT data cataloged here reveals the industrial scale of Venezuela’s dual-use logistics network. Over 70 maritime vessels span the full spectrum from sanctioned dark fleet tankers to state-owned PDVSA ships to licensed Chevron operations, while 60+ aircraft range from presidential jets to unidentified ghost planes on narco-trafficking routes. The convergence point is the Venezuelan state itself—through the Cartel de los Soles, the same military command structure that manages oil port access also controls aerial radar and clandestine airstrips.

But it also exposes governments on all sides: Russia, Iran, the United States, and even the United Arab Emirates used and will continue to use the trade corridor to take advantage of Venezuela’s wealth.

The U.S. enforcement campaign—from tanker seizures to the FTO designation—has disrupted but not dismantled these networks. The January 2026 breakout of 12 loaded tankers in dark mode demonstrates that the dark fleet adapts faster than enforcement can pursue. Meanwhile, on the aviation side, the regime’s ability to acquire replacement aircraft (T7102X after the Dassault seizures), spoof transponder identities (YV657T impersonating ETR823), and maintain constant Cuba flights (YV3404) suggests a system designed for resilience above all else.