Shadow Fleet Tanker Flees to Russia with US Coast Guard in Pursuit

A stateless, run down oil tanker called the Bella 1 is making a run for a Russian port after it refused to be boarded near Venezuela more than a week ago. This has turned into a kind of slow-speed chase at sea with the empty tanker traveling around the world pursued by the US Coast Guard. I’m not sure why the US is allowing this to happen at this point. There may be a good reason the ship go rather than seizing it, but it’s not obvious (to me, anyway) what the reason is. 

This story has been unfolding for nearly two weeks now so let’s just go back to the very beginning. The ship was first spotted leaving Iran way back in August. By late December it was approaching the coast of Venezuela where the US Coast Guard asked to board it. The ship refused which meant the US would need to call in a special team if it wanted to board without permission.

The U.S. Coast Guard is waiting for additional forces to arrive before potentially attempting to board and seize a Venezuela-linked oil tanker it has been pursuing since Sunday, a U.S. official and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The ship, which maritime groups have identified as the Bella 1, has refused to be boarded by the Coast Guard. That means that the task will likely fall to one of just two teams of specialists – known as Maritime Security Response Teams – who can board vessels under these circumstances, including by rappelling from helicopters…

Unlike the U.S. Navy, the Coast Guard can carry out law enforcement actions, including boarding and seizing vessels that are under U.S. sanctions.

So the US Navy has plenty of people who could board a tanker but that would be considered a military action, not law enforcement. And for whatever reason the teams who could board the ship were not available. And so we’ve just been following this ship as it flees back across the entire Atlantic Ocean. Best I can tell, it never took on any oil because it never docked in Venezuela so it’s an empty tanker.

The story took on some new dimensions this week as the ship, which is officially stateless, tried to claim Russian protection. It started with the crew painting a Russian flag on the side of the ship.

The Bella 1’s crew members have since painted a Russian flag on the tanker during the escape and are now claiming Russian status, according to the U.S. officials, who were briefed on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive operation.

The tanker has been under U.S. sanctions since last year for transporting Iranian oil, which federal authorities have said is sold to finance terrorism.

The ship also appears to have recently changed its course northwest, away from the Mediterranean Sea, possibly heading toward Greenland or Iceland, the officials said. It is not believed to be carrying cargo. The Bella 1’s location transponder has not been on since Dec. 17, meaning The New York Times has not been able to track the vessel as it flees from U.S. forces.

Russia stepped in to help their buddies in Tehran help evade sanctions and the seizure of this ship. Overnight, the ship appeared under a new name in a Russian database.

The oil tanker fleeing American forces in the Atlantic Ocean has been formally renamed and added to an official Russian database of vessels registered in that country, potentially complicating U.S. efforts to board the runaway ship.

According to the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, the vessel, previously known as the Bella 1, is now registered as the Marinera. The database lists the vessel as flying the Russian flag, with a home port of Sochi.

Under international law, ships flying a country’s flag are under that nation’s protection. But the vessel’s efforts to stay out of U.S. jurisdiction might still be a long shot, because American officials said it was not flying a valid national flag when it was initially approached by the Coast Guard more than a week ago.

Russia then made a formal request to have the US stop following the ship:

The government of Russia has made a formal diplomatic request that the United States stop its pursuit of an oil tanker that had been sailing for Venezuela and is now fleeing the Coast Guard in the Atlantic Ocean, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The request was delivered late on New Year’s Eve to the State Department, said the people, who discussed the diplomatic message on the condition of anonymity. It was also sent to the White House’s Homeland Security Council, one of the people said.

I’ve seen some reports at Russian sites saying the US agreed to this but that doesn’t seem to be the case. As of today, we’re still tracking the ship as it makes for a Russian port.

The ship that had been known as Bella 1, which is still being tracked by the U.S. Coast Guard, is on a course that could take it between Iceland and Britain, according to data published by Pole Star Global, a ship-tracking company. From there, it is possible that the vessel could head around Scandinavia to Murmansk, Russia’s ice-free Arctic port…

Ships like the Bella 1, part of a so-called shadow fleet that transports oil for Russia, Iran and Venezuela in violation of sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries, often turn off their transponders to hide their locations.

At this point I guess we really don’t want this broken down old tanker with no oil in it. We made a point by keeping it away from Venezuela. On the other hand why hand it to Russia when we know they’ll just find some way to hand it back to Iran to keep the same sanctioned oil flowing. Maybe there was more to the calculation behind letting this fish get away. But none of the stories about this indicated what that reasoning might be.

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