U.S. authorities executed a court-authorized seizure of the VLCC Skipper, using helicopters from the USS Gerald R. Ford and U.S. Marines to secure the ship. Officials say the action complied with U.S. and international law, though some lawmakers and foreign officials criticized the operation.
The tanker, carrying roughly $100 million worth of sanctioned oil (reported as about 2 million tons), is being routed to Galveston, Texas, where both the vessel and its cargo will face U.S. forfeiture proceedings. Formerly named Adisa, the Skipper has been on U.S. sanctions lists since 2022 for its role in an illicit oil-smuggling network tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah.
On paper the ship is registered to Triton Navigation Corp. in the Marshall Islands and managed by Nigeria’s Thomarose Global Ventures Ltd., but its ownership is embedded in complex structures typical of the “shadow fleets” used to move Iranian and other sanctioned oil while evading detection. Despite U.S. Treasury sanctions, the 333-meter VLCC operated visibly for three years, transporting Venezuelan and Iranian crude. It flew a Guyanese flag but was not truly registered in Guyana. The Skipper reportedly conducted ship-to-ship transfers, including deliveries to Cuba where cargoes were allegedly “laundered” by Asian intermediaries. Both the vessel and its cargo were uninsured; under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, a ship without valid nationality is treated as stateless.
Shortly after the seizure, the U.S. imposed sanctions on six additional VLCCs linked to relatives of Venezuelan First Lady Cilia Flores. The six newly designated tankers are White Crane, Kiara M., H. Constance, Lattafa, Monique and Tamia. U.S. authorities tied the group to three nephews of Flores; two of those nephews had earlier been convicted in the United States on drug-trafficking charges and later released in a prisoner exchange.
Automatic Identification System (AIS) transmission is mandatory for ships over 300 tons. AIS broadcasts a vessel’s identity, speed, heading and GPS position via VHF radio with a typical line-of-sight range of roughly 45 miles; those signals are also captured by low-Earth-orbit satellites. While essential for maritime safety and tracking, AIS can be spoofed: operators may manually input false data or use deception tools to make a ship appear elsewhere. The Skipper repeatedly reported bogus AIS positions—at times thousands of miles from its real location—and periodically turned off its transponder to hide ports of call or to facilitate clandestine transfers.
Spoofing often comes to light when commercial and government trackers correlate satellite imagery and other remote-sensing data with AIS reports. That kind of cross-checking likely contributed to the Skipper’s 2022 sanction designation. Commercial intelligence firms that monitor shipping sell vessel-tracking products and analytic reports to governments; the U.S. government purchases such data and applies algorithms to detect spoofing and unauthorized AIS shutdowns.
This seizure follows earlier U.S. interdictions: in 2020 the United States seized 1.1 million barrels of Iranian fuel from four vessels bound for Venezuela, and in 2014 the MV Morning Glory was seized after allegations it carried stolen oil. More recently, data intelligence firm Kpler said it identified 261 vessels that spoofed AIS between January 2024 and July 2025 prior to being sanctioned. Kpler described spoofing as a “fast track to sanctions,” noting that 61 of those ships were sanctioned within three to six months and 59 within six to nine months; many others remain unsanctioned.
Observers say the Skipper’s seizure is only the tip of a much larger problem. If only the most blatant offenders are placed on sanctions lists or only a handful of tankers are seized, much of the so-called ghost fleet can continue operating with limited interdiction. That ability allows sanctioned states and their intermediaries—Venezuela, Iran and partners such as Cuba—to keep funneling revenue through illicit shipping channels, funding criminal networks, extremist groups and enriching figures in those regimes.
This article was first published by Stephen Bryen in his newsletter Weapons and Strategy and is republished here with permission.
