Gambia Deletes Shadow Fleet Tankers in Second Flag Governance Crackdown

Gambia Moves to Reassert Control Over Its Flag

Gambia’s maritime administration has begun removing most Russia-trading tankers flagged through its privately run ship registry as a broader crackdown on weak governance gains momentum.

Twenty tankers are now listed as falsely flagged with Gambia in the International Maritime Organization’s database. The IMO designates a vessel as falsely flagged when a flag administration confirms it is not legally registered.

Gambia has reportedly deflagged 72 ships for fraudulently issued certificates, according to public reports. That number has yet to appear in IMO records, which still list 104 ships flying Gambia’s flag, including nearly 40 dark-fleet tankers.

The move signals rising diplomatic pressure from the United States and Europe to confront safety, security, and environmental risks tied to dark-fleet vessels that seek permissive registries with limited expertise or oversight to evade sanctions.

Gambia played a central role in facilitating Russian oil shipments after outsourcing management of its international registry to a private contractor in mid-2023. The flag expanded by more than 1,000% in 12 months, jumping from fewer than 40 domestic vessels totaling 47,000 gross tons to more than 110 ships of 2.1 million tons by mid-2025. Growth came largely from sanctioned tankers within the dark fleet.

A Regional Clean-Up Accelerates

The crackdown follows similar steps by Comoros, which began removing more than 60 tankers in July that it determined were falsely flying its flag. Both administrations moved amid mounting evidence of their importance to sanctioned dark-fleet operations, many of which involve vessels in poor condition with uncertain insurance and class status.

Tankers flying the Gambia and Sierra Leone flags — both run by the same private contractor in Cyprus — made up 40% of all tanker calls at Russia’s Baltic ports between October 1 and November 10, according to Windward analysis. Falsely flagged ships accounted for an additional 19%, putting more than two-thirds of tanker traffic through the Baltic Sea during that period under minimal governance or regulatory oversight.

Flag-hopping to avoid due diligence and regulatory scrutiny reached new highs in the third quarter of 2025 as registry after registry removed sanctioned tonnage. Several Gambia-flagged ships cycled through as many as five other flags within six months, exploiting provisional registration and limited oversight to secure temporary refuge.

Over the past 18 months, the EU and UK have pressed governments whose registries are used by dark-fleet vessels to remove sanctioned ships. They have also sanctioned Intershipping Services, the UAE-based operator of Gabon’s flag, while Panama — one of the world’s largest registries — amended its regulations in August 2023 to remove all Western-sanctioned vessels. These moves disrupted the business model of many private registry operators, redirecting sanctioned tankers toward Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Comoros.

Pressure Mounts on Fraudulent Registries

More than 550 sanctioned, Russia-trading vessels are now active, and Windward has identified 17 fraudulent registries servicing them. Nordic and Baltic states have begun targeting falsely flagged vessels transiting their coastal waters as part of intelligence-gathering operations, contacting ships by radio to verify flag and insurance information.

One tanker previously flagged to Gambia has already shifted to Cameroon — its fifth flag since February. The Aqua Titan (IMO 9332781), a 2006-built aframax sanctioned by the EU and UK, was sailing through the English Channel on November 23 with Russian crude while signaling Cameroon’s flag. The ship was among more than 60 vessels removed from the Comoros registry earlier in the year. After being declared falsely flagged in early October, it moved briefly to Gambia before the IMO again listed it as falsely flagged. It began signaling Cameroon on November 3.

EU and UK-sanctioned Aqua Titan sails through the English Channel on November 23, after switching to the Cameroon flag after the IMO declared it was falsely flagged with Gambia.

Gambia’s actions mark meaningful progress, but hundreds of sanctioned tankers continue to exploit an expanding network of fraudulent registries. For now, the dark fleet remains more agile than the regulatory system designed to oversee it.