Countries use maritime technology to evade US sanctions

The US government uses data provided by the Windward company to carry out investigations into the evasion of sanctions.

The company states that since January 2020, more than 200 vessels have been detected that would have modified their GPS location.

This technology, which camouflages the location of ships, was only accessible to the world's leading military forces. Currently, it is used by governments such as Venezuela and Iran to violate sanctioning measures.

The co-founder of Winward, Matan Peled, assured that the situation was out of control, since it is not the largest military powers in the world, but regular companies that are using this technology.

Peled told the US authorities that they have failed to achieve the rapid spread of the technology. For decades this has been part of the arsenal of digital wars.

Currently, this technology is barely reaching the hands of commercial transport and, according to Peled, has brought serious environmental, maritime and national security consequences for the United States.

Suspicious boats

The company has been able to identify suspicious vessels using this technology, since it detects electronic traces that do not correspond to real movements, for example: small turns at high speed or simply constant circular turns.

The former director of the United States Pacific Command, William Fallon, commented that the United States authorities have been aware of digital manipulation for some years. He classifies it as a “grey threat”.

Fallon assures that any person or object that wants to make believe that it is in a place where it really is not, is to be worry. Therefore, that is considered a danger to the national security of the United States.

Winward has revealed one of the most significant cases. It is an oil tanker 183 meters long that the radars indicated was headed for Iraq.

However, the ship was actually loading oil on Iranian soil, even though it is prohibited from doing so under US sanctions.

The boat, whose name was not revealed so as not to hinder the investigations, would have sailed on February 11 of last year from the United Arab Emirates, bound for Iraq. When the boat was 20 miles from its destination, it began to show strange behavior in its movement.

After twelve days, the transmission stabilized and was reflected with a navigation course at regular speed, but illegally loaded with oil. Satellite images showed a ship with similar characteristics at Iran's oil terminal.

According to the data provided by the satellite, the ship headed for the United Arab Emirates and its course was the same as the original ship.

New maritime technology

The United Nations has a maritime treaty. This consists in that vessels of more than 300 tons have the obligation to use an automated identification system to avoid collisions.

Interfering with this system is a serious crime and results in large international sanctions against the ship and its owner.

This technology was created as a maritime security system, but this science caused websites like MarineTraffic to start having a greater reach.

The authorities have assured that these types of websites can be easily deceived because they only depend on amateur data.

Location spoofing

Currently, in China, a Data Privacy Law has been implemented that has significantly reduced the amount of information collected by the authorities, in its territorial seas.

This situation makes it difficult to track data that is important to supply chains around the world, and to the largest fishing fleets on the planet.

The investigations carried out by Global Fishing Watch have reached the same conclusions as the North American company Winward.

They have managed to identify more than 30 ships that have changed their real location, compared to the data provided by satellites.

The Panamanian ship Tulip is listed as one of the vessels that has falsified its location. Last year, for almost six months, the Tulip showed that it was sailing in West Africa.

The satellite that was in charge of collecting information on its location was thousands of kilometers from its location, which indicates that the ship was really in Venezuela.

The Associated Press was able to obtain private documents from the Venezuelan state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA). According to indications, the Tulip ship loaded 450,000 barrels of oil in the first half of September.

Like other suspected vessels, the oil is bought by an Asian company called M and Y Trading Co., which is registered in Hong Kong. The Tulip is owned by another Asian company called Victory Marine Ltd.

None of the companies have responded to the calls made by the authorities requesting an explanation. Global Fishing Watch analyst Bjorn Bergman assured that it is not difficult to detect the false location of a vessel.

Sanctions evasion

Of the 200 vessels detected by Windward with false location, few showed distinct deception patterns, such as: deactivation of the tracking system, false flags or constantly changing companies.

These patterns are clear indicators of sanctions evasion. This has been reaffirmed by the State Department, along with the United States Department of the Treasury and the Coast Guard.

These warnings are considered an important step in efforts to combat shipping companies doing business with countries and companies sanctioned by the United States. So it does not refer to the new method, used to manipulate the location for the illegal oil trade.

This practice has been called by Windward as "all against all", with no possible solutions.

Dror Salzman, risk analyst for Windward, indicated that most of these vessels have been chosen specifically for these operations. The rest of the ships detected by the satellites do not present irregularities.