U.S. Government Sells Two Seized Shadow Fleet Tankers for Scrap

A Coast Guard cutter pursued Marinera (Bella 1) across the Atlantic before arranging its capture (USCG)

Cash buyer GMS has purchased two aging tankers that the U.S. government captured during the Venezuela campaign earlier this year, and will be sending the vessels for demolition, taking advantage of favorable scrap pricing.

In January, as part of a campaign to remove Venezuela's government leadership, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard began to intercept and capture tankers linked to the nation's oil export sector. former Marinera/Bella 1 and Galileo/Veronica were seized by U.S. Coast Guard boarding teams and brought to secure anchorages for final disposition. Marinera fled the Caribbean and after a long chase, she was captured off Iceland and diverted to Moray Firth, Scotland for holding. Her captain was extradited to the United States swiftly to face criminal charges, and he was sentenced to 10 months in prison for failing to obey an order from the U.S. Coast Guard to heave to and permit boarding.

Galileo was captured in the Caribbean using sanctions-enforcement authorities linked to her past history carrying Iranian oil. At the last minute, her former owner reflagged her into the Russian shipping registry in an attempt to evade seizure, but without success.

Ownership of shadow-fleet vessel assets is always opaque, and the shipping interests behind these two tankers are unknown. "The U.S. government has sold them to us and there was a court order authorizing the sales, but there are complexities, not least the fact that we weren’t really sure who previously owned them," GMS CEO Anil Sharma told Lloyd’s List.

Both vessels have now shortened their names - a common practice for a demolition voyage, allowing the owner to paint over a few letters on the stern to achieve the vessel's final name. They are now known as the Era and Lileo.

Lileo is now at anchor off Trinidad, and Era is under way in the mid-Atlantic, bound for the Cape of Good Hope - and likely the scrapping beaches of Southeast Asia.