Similar Problem, Similar Solution
A crude oil tanker loaded from a sanctioned terminal and a cocaine-laden ship loaded from the coasts of Colombia face a similar problem. Both need to move cargo in international waters without their journeys being analyzable. The techniques that solve this problem are not specific to one commodity.
These methods include turning off the Automatic Identification System (AIS) at the moment a record becomes important, transferring cargo at sea so that the ship entering the controlled port is not the same ship that was loaded, changing flags, names, and MMSI in such a way that the history does not stick to the hull of the ship, and declaring a source that is not actually where the cargo came from.
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Introduction of Two Ships
A Windward anti-narcotics assessment described a ship as a classic case of abuse of fictitious registrations, deliberate AIS manipulation, and corporate opacity for moving illegal cargo across continents. Each element of this sentence fits equally well in a report on evasion of sanctions. The only thing that differs is the Hold content.
The compliance community and law enforcement community have historically viewed these cases as separate problems with separate tools. At the level of ship behavior, these two are one problem. An AIS gap does not explain itself. It only tells you that a ship has stopped at a specific location, at a specific time, for a specified duration, and then resumed sending information.
Windward tracked a public cargo ship flagged in Mali that declared a destination to Egypt from its home port in Albania in late August 2026, turned off its AIS in international waters near Libya, and remained off for over three weeks. The ship reappeared almost exactly where it had turned off and immediately changed its declared destination back to Albania and returned home.
Transferring Cargo at Sea
Transferring cargo from ship to ship is the most transferable technique between the two threat profiles. Sanctioned operators use it to sever the connection between the cargo and the source. Crude oil loads are loaded at a designated terminal, transferred at sea to a ship with a clean profile, and arrive at a legitimate port with documentation describing a different journey.
Smuggling networks also use this structure for the same reason. Illegal goods are transferred from ships that cannot enter a controlled port to ships that can, or from a mother ship to a small boat that never appears in any commercial record.
This behavior is clearly identifiable in images, regardless of AIS status. Two hulls are visible side by side in EO and SAR images, even if neither sends information and draft changes consistent with a transfer are observable even when there is no AIS record of this event.
Finally, it is worth noting that ships with a documented pattern of illegal behaviors change their flags, change their names, and reappear as a seemingly clean entity. These identity changes help prevent tracking the ship's records.
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