Posted on 04/15/2026 9:26:04 AM PDT by Miami Rebel
Maritime intelligence experts say that more ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz seem to be adopting tactics to avoid detection since the U.S. blockade on vessels coming in and out of Iranian ports went into effect on Monday.
“Now, we are starting to see vessels going dark or using ‘zombie’ or random identification,” Ami Daniel, the chief executive of Windward, a maritime intelligence data provider, said in an interview on Tuesday.
In the weeks after the American-Israeli attack on Iran in late February, Iranian exports went “uninterrupted” and had “almost no need to go off radar,” Mr. Daniel said. But in the past 24 hours, more ships appear to be manipulating the global system intended to keep tabs on vessel activity and traffic, suggesting that some vessels linked to Iran are being “a bit more cautious,” he said.
Under international maritime law, most large commercial vessels must travel with a transponder that automatically transmits the ship’s name, location, route and other identifying information. That includes a nine-digit number with a country code, which serves as a digital fingerprint for a ship.
Vessels in Middle Eastern waters that are now trying to hide their location or are otherwise falsifying information are employing methods that have been perfected by Russian “shadow fleet” vessels evading sanctions related to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some experts say.
“Shadow fleet tankers have been experimenting with stateless ID numbers,” said John C.K. Daly, a nonresident fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington who has been tracking Russian shadow ships. “What the Russians have been doing is altering the numbers.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
US ships have radar.
Sounds like a perfect excuse to seize a zombie ship for a period of time long enough to compare satellite positions to course recorded in maritime logs and if the don’t agree to hold the ship even longer until a corrected course is provided by the officers of the held ship.
Shipping companies really don’t like delays in the availability of their assets to haul cargo.
Mr. Israeli Naval Commander:
Here are some Iranian mines we found.
Obviously, they belong to Iran and Iran deserves to have them back.
Don’t get too close to Iranian shores.
Send more U.S. ships f them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.