Shadow Insurance for a Shady Fleet: How Russia’s Tankers Slip Through Sanctions

4 min readOct 30, 2024

So, Russia’s Dark Fleet insurance scheme, huh? It’s like this: They’re taking the “insurance compliance” book, flipping it over, and skipping a few chapters. Picture a bunch of creaky oil tankers — all over 60 bucks a barrel and Western insurers saying, “No, thanks!” So what does Russia do? They go to these shadowy, second-rate insurers, the “discount aisle” of insurance: companies like Ingosstrakh. These folks don’t quite care about international regulations — let’s face it, they’re about as compliant as a cat is to a bath.

But here’s the catch: Britain caught wind of Ingosstrakh’s game and banned them faster than you can say “oil slick.” Now, Ingosstrakh’s still technically playing by Russia’s rules, which are the legal equivalent of a fig leaf on a windy day, but the Brits shutting them out of London puts a kink in their plans. If India or any other big players start to rethink letting these vessels dock, Russia’s whole ship-to-sneaky-ship oil hustle could start sinking.

Now, here’s the kicker. Imagine one of these “lightly insured” oil tankers going belly up somewhere — no full insurance coverage, no cleanup crew in sight, and you’ve got an oil spill the size of your average small country. Local economies, coastal businesses — they’re out of luck. Western insurers are already putting out warnings, saying, “Look, if our ships collide with these rogue vessels mid-transfer, don’t come crying to us!”

Meanwhile, the EU and the U.S. are out here with their fancy tracking systems, trying to keep tabs on these ships with AIS and Inmarsat-C tracking like it’s Mission Impossible. But let’s be honest — spoofing locations and sneaky ocean transfers are keeping Russia’s oil flowing right under the radar. You’ve got a game of hide-and-seek on a global scale, and it’s going to take more than tracking systems and trade bans to slow them down.

In the end, this is a regulatory mess, folks. Russia’s figured out that if you keep moving the target, regulators can’t shoot straight. This Dark Fleet operation is a prime example of how if you want to sell oil, and you’ve got the right shady insurance and a slippery enough plan, the whole sanction thing just becomes a suggestion.

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