CHIRP Maritime: How to identify the shadow fleet

Spotting the warning signs

Look for the following indicators:

Vessel Characteristics

• Significantly older vessels, particularly where there are visible signs of poor maintenance or neglect.
• Frequent changes in ownership or management
• Rapid or repeated flag changes
• Not appearing on recognised Port State Control MoUs (Paris, Tokyo, USCG)

Operational Patterns

• Unusual or high-risk trading routes
• No clear management, insurance or P&I entry
• AIS switched off or transmitting false positions
• Ship-to-ship (STS) cargo transfers offshore

High-Risk Registries

• If registered under unofficial or suspicious registries, the vessel is likely sanctioned.

What’s at stake for you?

Work on a sanctioned vessel can bring serious safety, welfare and legal consequences.

1. Safety Risks: Non-compliance with SOLAS, IMO or class requirements increases the likelihood of mechanical failures, collisions or pollution incidents. Trading patterns may place the vessel and crew in high-risk or conflict regions where military strikes against merchant vessels have occurred.
2. Welfare Risks: Higher chance of unpaid wages, delayed payments, or total abandonment. Living conditions may fall below minimum standards, with reports of bullying, intimidation, withheld phones, poor food quality, restricted communication and very limited or no shore leave.
3. Mental Health Risks: Isolation, uncertainty and lack of contact with family can lead to depression, anxiety and other mental-health challenges.
4. Legal Risks: Seizure, detention or impoundment by authorities

Safety checks

Safer recruitment and pre-joining checks
Before signing any contract, seafarers and crewing companies should:

• Confirm compliance with MLC, SOLAS and IMO standards
• Ensure contract lists wages, overtime, leave, and repatriation terms
• Verify wage payment systems and insurance coverage
• Check ownership history, PSC records and AIS behaviour
• Ensure emergency contact details are available (ITF, ISWAN, CHIRP)
• Encourage families to keep vessel details recorded at home
• Carry an emergency SIM card

If you are already onboard

• Prioritise personal safety; do not confront those in control
• Discreetly inform family or trusted organisations (Union, ISWAN, CHIRP)
• Carry an emergency SIM card
• Document unsafe conditions if safe to do so
• Contact ITF or national authority if wages stop
• Arrange to leave safely at earliest opportunity

Support for families

Maintain regular communication through multiple channels

• If affordable, set aside some money every month to build an emergency fund in case wages stop
• Use agreed code words for discreet alerts
• Act quickly if communication stops or wages are delayed
• Seek help from ITF, ISWAN or CHIRP
• Provide emotional support and stay informed

The shadow fleet, sometimes called the dark fleet, describes a network of tankers and support ships that use misleading shipping methods to transport sanctioned or high-risk goods while hiding their actual origin, ownership, or endpoint.

This network grew quickly after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, leading to the emergence of a new category known as the gray fleet – vessels showing signs of connections to Russia but not officially under sanctions.

Last June, EU proposed the 18th sanctions package against Russia which expanded the EU’s blacklist of vessels in Russia’s “shadow fleet” to over 400 and proposed banning imports of refined products made from Russian oil to prevent indirect trade.