How ships are trying to break through the US blockade in the Strait of Hormuz — BBC News

[0:00] this is a map of the iranian coastline just tell us how this blockade is supposed to work well the [0:05] parameters aren't quite clear but what we have been told is that anything coming in and out of [0:10] iranian ports as you see here so these purple dots are the iranian ports they're the key ports [0:15] is subject to the blockade that's all we know so they're not allowed to come in or out in theory [0:21] of these ports exactly although how they determined what is an inbound [0:26] tanker or ship for iran is is unclear as well and tell us where we think or what we know about where [0:34] ships that do attempt to break the blockade are being intercepted by the american so in the last [0:38] couple of days there have been a few ships that have fulfilled the criteria set by the us they've [0:44] left iranian ports or they're laden with iranian goods so they're clearly called at a port they [0:52] have come through the route here the iranian prescribed route and then they seem to have [0:57] either turned around here or they have turned off their vessel tracking transponder so we're not sure [1:03] what's happened to them that behavior is highly unusual disruptive and you know suggests that [1:09] there's some sort of chaos happening but of course there's also vessels that will come through dark [1:13] with their vessel tracking transponders off okay well let's talk about what we know or how we know what [1:18] we think we know about where vessels are this is ship tracking data explain what we're seeing here [1:25] so this is vessels signaling via their automatic identification system their location in more or [1:32] less real time at this here each of these dots and each of these dots is a ship is a ship these [1:39] obviously are at anchorage are not moving and the ones with the arrows are on on their way okay so each [1:45] ship has a radio transponder i understand and that's what the signal is showing in real time they're [1:51] mandated to to signal their position um under international maritime law but do they always do [1:58] that well no they don't and especially in war conditions and iranian or crude exports have always [2:06] been dark so until the blockade it was business as normal for iranian crude exports the vessels would [2:11] load at karg island the biggest export port while they were dark they would sail through here dark so [2:16] you wouldn't be able to see them tracking now suggests that it's now very difficult for them to [2:24] make the attempt to go through because of what we've seen for those vessels that have turned around [2:28] now i think when they turn off their transponders that's known as going dark going dark and i think [2:35] elpis is an example of a ship which has recently done that yeah classic so elpis went through several [2:41] hours after the blockade was imposed followed the track here and then once it reached there no [2:46] more signal so there's a couple of possibilities that happened to it so it was interdicted and it's [2:52] now at anchor getting it getting sorted out it turned around but turned off its ais so we don't [2:58] know where it is now so it could it's the last known location is here but it could be here it could [3:04] be further out we just don't know we don't know or it could be spoofing its location and that is [3:08] intentionally manipulating its ais so it shows that it's in one spot but it's really in another [3:15] again we don't know what other things complicate the picture for us i think false flags is something [3:21] that you've mentioned yeah so false flags are vessels that are flying the flag of a registry that [3:26] doesn't exist so they're stateless and they usually do that because they're sanctioned and quite frankly [3:31] no one else would take them and so that's very very common with iranian trading tankers so if you see [3:36] any vessel flying a false flag and there's about 18 or 19 of them that we've identified at winwood [3:41] um then you know that that's definitely heading to iran the alicia is one of them showing its its [3:47] correct uh over the past 48 hours here yep so the alicia delivered a cargo of iranian oil to china [3:54] back in january and then it sailed through it arrived here um just off oman and it's in ballast [4:00] so it doesn't have any cargo on board and then it sailed through and technically broke the embargo [4:05] because we know that it's going to karg island but but what flag is it flying under curacao right [4:11] curacao doesn't exist it doesn't have a an international register and the netherlands [4:16] government have been um advising anybody and anyone who will listen in the maritime sector for the last [4:22] 18 months these vessels flying curacao are stateless because the register doesn't exist so ship tracking [4:29] data doesn't give us a perfect picture by any means so how do we cross check and get the most accurate [4:34] picture of what is actually going on so increasingly we're able to use satellite imagery to find out [4:40] what is going on when vessels are going dark so very good case in point is we've been looking at karg [4:46] island daily tasking satellites and we're able to see what vessels are loading there and then we use [4:53] digital fingerprints to identify those vessels so even though they have sailed through here and we can't [4:59] see them we can sort of work backwards and and find out what they've got they're up to so big picture [5:05] the americans say their blockade is definitely working succeeding in what they want to do which [5:10] is to stop iran getting its oil out to global markets as best we know from the data do we think that's [5:16] right we don't know and and that's because a the the mandate and the directions about the embargo [5:24] uh deliberately ambiguous i would say and secondly when you've got ships like alpers have turned off [5:31] their ais and then there's a few others that have done similar um chaotic movements sub after they [5:38] went through uh the blockade um it will take a couple of days or we have to wait for the us to [5:44] identify the vessels that they've targeted michelle visa botman thank you so much for talking us through [5:48] that thank you