You are using an outdated browser For a better experience using this site, please upgrade to a modern web browser. Subscribe Get Daily Email Subscribe --> Contact Us Sign in Home News & Features Compliance Costs Bunker Prices Bunker Intelligence World News Latest Features World Americas EMEA Asia/Pacific Home News & Features World FEATURE: Bunker Suppliers Can No Longer Trust Two Key Sanctions Checks FEATURE: Bunker Suppliers Can No Longer Trust Two Key Sanctions Checks by Martyn Lasek, Managing Director, Ship & Bunker Thursday September 10, 2026 Tweet Follow @shipandbunker Knowing who you are dealing with is getting harder. File Image / AI Generated 275 tankers broadcast fraudulent registry flags in Q2, according to Windward 1.24 million false ship-to-ship AIS meetings recorded in the same quarter, its data shows EU 's 21st sanctions package lets vessels be designated for bunkering listed ships IMO says no single treaty defines fraudulent ship registration A bunker supplier weighing up an enquiry has two important ways of establishing who it is dealing with. The first is the vessel's certificate of registry, which confirms its identity and says whose flag it sails under, and the second is its AIS history, which says where it has been. Not only are both now routinely faked, the cost of getting it wrong has just shifted from the shipowner onto the supplier. In the second quarter of 2026 , 275 internationally trading tankers were broadcasting the flag of a fraudulent registry, down from 290 in the first quarter, according to maritime intelligence firm Windward , which says it has now identified 22 such registries. Around 90 % of the tankers using them are under Western sanctions. The First Check: A Flag That May Not Exist The fraud is hard to spot because the legitimate model looks much the same. Several of the world's largest open registries are run by private companies under contract to a government , an arrangement used by Liberia and the Marshall Islan