Cameroon Pledges Crackdown on Ship Registry Flagging 13% of Dark Fleet Tankers in International Shipping News 23/02/2026 Cameroon’s government has pledged to deregister all shadow fleet tankers following representations from Brussels and amid a surge in registrations from sanctioned, stateless tonnage in late 2025 and early 2026. More than 20 vessels reflagged to Cameroon in the past 30 days, and 43 in the past 60 days, according to Windward Maritime AI™ intelligence. Most were previously flagless and stateless, as they had used fraudulent registries or had been removed by other flags after pressure was applied to those governments. Cameroon is now the second-largest ship registry for sanctioned shadow fleet tankers after Russia. The registry accounted for 13% of sanctioned tankers (by number) that broadcast their flag via AIS in 2026. More than 120 sanctioned tankers fly Cameroon’s flag, with 180 tankers overall using the registry, according to Windward. Enforcement Pressure and Flag-Hopping Acceleration The shift to Cameroon follows U.S. government-led boardings and interdictions of nine falsely flagged, stateless tankers in the Caribbean, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans since December, as well as France’s detention of the tanker Grinch in the Mediterranean last month. The Cameroon crackdown leaves even fewer flag options for the 1,100+ Western-sanctioned tankers, which now comprise about 20% of the internationally trading global tanker fleet. Anonymous owners of shadow fleet vessels shipping sanctioned oil from Iran and Russia, and previously Venezuela, embraced permissive registries after established open registries such as Liberia and the Marshall Islands rejected their business. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, registries including St. Kitts & Nevis, Gabon, Barbados, Cook Islands, San Marino, and Guinea-Bissau have flagged and then de-flagged hundreds of ships following the first wave of representations from Western governments regarding lax standards and oversight gaps. These registries were operated under opaque contracts by private companies through networks of maritime agents. Their removal forced shadow fleet tankers to migrate to fraudulent registries or seek out even smaller, no-questions-asked registries such as Gambia, Sierra Leone, Palau, Comoros, and Cameroon. Regulatory Retrenchment Among Smaller Registries The threat of boarding stateless tankers, alongside continued pressure on governments overseeing permissive registries, has triggered rapid behavioral and management adaptations among these vessels. Caption: There were 182 tankers broadcasting via AIS they were flagged with Cameroon on February 15th. Source: Windward Maritime AI™ Cameroon is set to become the fourth government in six months to remove sanctioned tankers in an effort to align its registry with maritime regulations and conventions to which it is a signatory. Comoros and Gambia together deleted more than 130 tankers, while Palau dismissed the contractor managing its registry after maritime agent shareholders were blacklisted by the U.S. for services provided to Iranian tankers. Since 14 coastal governments from the EU and UK jointly declared on January 26 that they would take action against unsafe Russia-trading tankers without a flag or using deceptive shipping practices, flag-hopping has accelerated. Alongside the shift to Cameroon, more tankers have falsely reflagged to Russia, with 40 switching since the December 10 boarding and seizure of the very large c