Venezuela

How an Army reservist helped Venezuela’s  Nobel laureate escape to Oslo (Military Times) María Corina Machado emerged from her  hiding place aboard a small fishing boat in the middle of the  Caribbean Sea. It was the night of Dec. 9. Read More ----oooo00O00oooo----

  

 US-sanctioned ships near Venezuela hiding behind false flags

published at 14:21

Kayleen Devlin
BBC Verify senior journalist

Of the 32 US-sanctioned oil tankers we’ve identified currently in the Caribbean near Venezuela, 17 are listed in the International Maritime Organization (IMO) database as sailing under a “false flag” and six others with an “unknown” flag.

A false-flag vessel is one that flies a flag without the authorisation of the country the flag represents. In this way a vessel can obscure its true ownership or management.

Michelle Bockmann, a maritime intelligence specialist at intelligence firm Windward, told BBC Verify that false flags have become an “emerging threat” over the past 18 months, driven by the surge in sanctions on global shipping.

According to a separate report released by Windward yesterday, when vessels misrepresent their nationality “it becomes harder to assign jurisdiction, board ships, detain cargo, or hold operators accountable”.

The 17 vessels identified as false flagged have been claiming to sail under the flags of Guinea, Guyana, Comoros, Aruba, Timor-Leste, Iran, Eswatini, Curaçao, the Gambia and Benin.