SHADY “zombie” tankers have been seen passing through the mine-riddled Strait of Hormuz using the names of scrapped ships.
Iran has maintained an effective blockade of the vital Persian Gulf chokehold – through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes – since US-Israeli forces began their bombing campaign on Tehran.
The blockade has left hundreds of ships stranded outside the 24-mile stretch of water, full of immensely valuable cargoes of oil, gas, fertiliser and food.
But 13 tankers – most of them Iranian – have made safe passage through the deadly strait over the weekend, according to shipping analysts Lloyds.
The vessels followed a strict route charted by the reeling regime, checking in at a secret island “toll booth” for inspection and paying eye-watering sums in Chinese currency.
“The pace of vessel transits across the Strait of Hormuz picked up over the weekend with at least 16 vessels crossing the chokepoint since Friday,” Lloyds List reports.
Other vessels to have been granted safe passage are associated with China, Russia, India and Pakistan.
But two shady tankers adopting names of scrapped ships were also able to slip through.
One claimed to be the Japanese LNG Jamal, a ship that was abandoned in India’s Alang ship-graveyard last year.
The other assumed the identity of Liberia’s oil tanker Nabin and Mozambique’s Nature’s Heart.
Nabin was taken apart in the Bangladesh Chittagong scrap-yard five years ago.
Zombie ships were making headlines earlier this year in attempts to avoid oil sanctions against Venezuela.
They disguise their identities by broadcasting a fake International Maritime Organisation registration number, name, call sign and flag of another vessel.
These IMOs are used to flout automated checks and fool port state control authorities.
Arsenio Longo, the founder of tanker movement analytics specialists Huax, told The National that this tactic works “precisely because no one is checking the physical vessel against the digital record in real time.”
“Those vessels then move the cargo onward wherever the final destination is, without ever having to transit Hormuz themselves,” he said.
“The zombie vessel is the bridge across the Strait of Hormuz checkpoint.”
Many of the ships that have passed through the strait have broadcast their nationalities as opposed to their destination to give themselves the best chance of security.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has insisted that the rogue state has not closed the Strait of Hormuz, as fuel prices skyrocket past $100 a barrel.
“The ships are being stopped because insurance companies fear a ‘war of choice’ that you, not Iran, have started,” he wrote on social media.
“Freedom of navigation is not possible without freedom of trade. Have both or expect neither.”
Two Indian tankers passed through the waterway on Monday after Donald Trump called off his threat to blitz Iran’s energy network over its closure.
They were said to have paid an astronomical $2million (£1.5m) “passage fee” in Chinese Yuan, a claim New Delhi has fiercely denied.
It comes as one of Iran’s most powerful weapons is lurking for its next victim in the strait.
The bloodthirsty Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has littered the Persian Gulf with deadly naval mines carrying explosives capable of blowing up enemy vessels.
US officials familiar with the latest intelligence revealed to CBS that there are two types of Iranian mines littering the passageway that until a month ago saw the transportation of a fifth of the global oil supplies.
Maham 3 and Maham 7 limpet mines are Iranian-manufactured and form a key part of the regime’s artillery.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/16136450/zombie-ships-iran-strait-hormuz-mystery/
