On January 14, a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanker sailing under the name
Captoon 2 (IMO 8817693) set off from the Romano port in Albania, bound for Tripoli in northern Lebanon. It then turned off its Automatic Identification System (AIS) and sailed on radio silence for more than a week reappearing 10 days later off Cyprus.
The curious pattern repeated itself with two other LPG tankers. The
Katara (IMO 9003079) set sail from the Turkish port of Dortyol on January 20, going off the radar near Cyprus while signaling for Beirut. It reappeared five days later at the same location. And earlier this month, the
Happy (IMO 9040170), left Aspropyrgos in Greece for an unclear location, going dark on February 10 in the same area off Cyprus only to reappear four days later as it was leaving the region. Yet another vanishing act.
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Five years ago, the United States sanctioned a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanker for involvement in transferring LPG to the port of Baniyas in northwestern Syria. The American action was designed to weaken a network supplying Damascus with energy products but the same vessel continues to visit Syria, with satellite imagery showing that the tanker was at Baniyas as recently as December 2020.
Some of the networks Washington sanctioned in 2015 have developed convoluted tactics to obfuscate their maritime activities and conceal their true ownerships, demonstrating their determination to evade sanctions in murky corners of the shipping industry where lawlessness pervades. The LPG tanker