A little misleading, since our carrier group is 200-300 km from Iran and presumably can still intercept them.

https://x.com/TTheBattlefield/status/2043784960692142273

Don't see why we wouldn't intercept tankers - the hard call will be tankers escorted by Chinese warships.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5856755&forum_id=2)#49815144)

https://x.com/clashreport/status/2043800426248605704

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5856755&forum_id=2)#49815170)

https://x.com/CENTCOMArabic/status/2044068939571884044

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5856755&forum_id=2)#49816620)

Tanker showed up to port in India and India refused the oil.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5856755&forum_id=2)#49817388)

https://x.com/TankerTrackers/status/2044344125894316066

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5856755&forum_id=2)#49819122)

Iran’s Shadow Fleet Meets Its Match in U.S. Blockade

April 15, 2026 10:06 am ET

The Rich Starry, a sanctioned Chinese oil and chemical tanker, masked its exact location in the Persian Gulf for more than 10 days before leaving through the Strait of Hormuz this week.

When it emerged into the Gulf of Oman—near where the U.S. Navy is operating to enforce its blockade of Iranian ports—the tanker made an abrupt U-turn. On Wednesday, it anchored off the coast of Iran.

The ship’s maneuvers, tracked by shipping-data firms and analysts, are evidence of an emerging cat-and-mouse game between the so-called shadow fleet of tankers and U.S. troops blockading Iran’s coast on the orders of President Trump.

Ships such as the Rich Starry, which has changed names twice in its 11-year history, according to shipping database Equasis, are part of a netherworld of shipping that enables Iran to evade sanctions including those on its oil industry. Early signs are that after years of dodging restrictions, the Iranian shadow fleet may have met its match in the U.S. naval blockade—its ships now appear unable to leave the Persian Gulf.

Assembled by Iran, Russia and Venezuela, such ships employ various methods to avoid detection—including going “dark” by switching off their transponder systems that broadcast a ship’s identity and location—or spoofing their signals by broadcasting false information about their positions. Iranian ships also transfer oil from one ship to another at sea to conceal the origin of their cargo.

“They are experts at evading detection,” said Bridget Diakun, a senior risk and compliance analyst at Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a shipping analysis firm. “It’s not just one or two of them that are doing this, it’s a lot of them.”

U.S. forces began Monday a blockade of all vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports in an apparent effort to pressure Iran to reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz waterway to global shipping and drop its toll on the crossing.

The U.S. military says it isn’t going after all sanctioned ships—only those leaving Iranian ports. But the Rich Starry, which was sanctioned by the Treasury Department for carrying Iranian products, shows the complexity of identifying which ships could be carrying goods from Iran. Over the past week, the ship broadcast that it was loitering off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to maritime-data firm Kpler. That was a fake trail, said Lloyd’s List analysts who comb through data along with advanced analytics and human intelligence to detect spoofing. They found Rich Starry faked its signal for more than 10 days until it tried to leave the Persian Gulf on Tuesday—giving it the opportunity to load up on Iranian oil products in that period.

The U.S. will have to rely on intelligence, satellite and tracking data, as well as drones and radio contact with crews and drones to identify potential blockade runners. It has also positioned more than 15 U.S. warships for the purpose of the blockade, The Wall Street Journal reported. Stationing ships on Iran’s coast could make U.S. assets susceptible to attack, officials said, so the U.S. will likely try to intercept or quarantine commercial vessels in the Arabian Sea.

On Tuesday, Centcom, which oversees U.S. forces in the region, said that no ships got through its blockade of Iranian ports in its first 24 hours. Six merchant vessels obeyed direction from U.S. forces to reverse course and re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman, Centcom said.

At least 10 ships transited the strait on Tuesday, according to Lloyd’s, some with the hallmarks of shadow-fleet activity, shipping analysts say. A Panama-flagged bulk carrier called Manali crossed out of the Gulf on Monday, listing its destination as a port in the U.A.E. The ship had a history of spoofing its location and was therefore classed as a part of the shadow fleet, said Diakun.

Ships with ties to Iran have so far had a better time getting into the Persian Gulf than out, possibly pointing to the difficulty the U.S. Navy might have in determining where a vessel is heading before it arrives. Sanctioned containerships Rayen and Daisy sailed in through Hormuz on Tuesday and were traveling toward the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, Lloyd’s List said.

Military and shipping analysts said the movements showed how operators of shadow ships were trying to test the limits of the blockade and probing to see whether the U.S. would take action to enforce the closure.

“I think that they’re trying to push the envelope to see. Is the U.S. going to really go the whole measure here,” said Bryan Clark, a former senior official with the U.S. Navy and now a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute.

The shadow fleet first emerged to ship Iranian oil after the U.S. tightened sanctions in 2012, before expanding when Trump imposed fresh restrictions on Tehran’s crude sales in 2018. The fleet ballooned to accommodate Russia’s huge oil flows after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

There are almost 1,500 ships in the shadow fleet around the world, according to TankerTrackers.com. Many of them switch between different sanctioned markets. More than 600 of those vessels have moved Iranian oil, including 60 or so tankers in the country’s state fleet, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers, which uses satellite imagery to pinpoint ships. After years of tough sanctions enforcement, shadow-fleet ships that serve Iran often use false data trails to give the impression they are sailing from Iraqi or Saudi ports, he said.

By combining shipping signals with images from satellites and patrol aircraft as well as information from intelligence gathering, the U.S. should be able to work out quickly whether a vessel is heading out of Hormuz from an Iranian port, said Kevin Rowlands of the Royal United Services Institute in London.

The biggest question is where the U.S. Navy will escort any ships it boards, Rowlands added. American forces stowed a shadow-fleet tanker it pursued from Venezuela in a British port earlier this year, but Rowlands said he wasn’t aware of any agreements that would enable a similar arrangement with Gulf states.

Determining where a ship going into the Gulf is headed in time to seize it might be more difficult, especially if the vessel claimed to be heading to a non-Iranian port, Rowlands said.

Ships that make several stops have raised questions for the enforcement of naval blockades since at least World War I, said Steven Wills, a navalist for the Center for Maritime Strategy in Washington, D.C., and former active duty Navy officer. U.S. forces will use drones and other sources of intelligence to tag, track and eventually intercept ships leaving Iranian ports, he said.

“How many ships are going to test the blockade? Does the Navy have enough ships, aircraft, assets, et cetera to keep up with that?” said Wills.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5856755&forum_id=2)#49819137)