Cameroon Pledges Crackdown on Ship Registry Flagging 13% of Dark Fleet Tankers

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.

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.

Caption: There were 182 tankers broadcasting via AIS they were flagged with Cameroon on February 15th. Source: Windward Maritime AI™

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 crude carrier Skipper in waters off Venezuela.

Cameroon’s government reportedly attributed an unspecified number of fraudulent registrations to cyber fraud.

Fewer Safe Havens for the Shadow Fleet

The move leaves fewer registries willing to flag shadow fleet tankers. Sierra Leone, which until 18 months ago had minimal tanker tonnage in its fleet, now accounts for 10% of sanctioned ships.

Panama, the world’s second-largest registry, changed regulations in late 2023 to de-flag all sanctioned ships.

The government of Oman offered regulatory refuge to Russia-trading tankers and those beneficially owned by Russian government-controlled Sovcomflot about a year ago and has since welcomed additional tankers sanctioned by the EU and UK. The registry has not flagged U.S.-sanctioned ships and, unlike others, is not controlled by a private contractor, according to its reports to the International Maritime Organization.