A photo of the crude oil tanker Min Hang (sailing under a different name) taken in 2023 Photo: Michael Warrick/Marine Traffic
Pacific false flags are flying high amongst sanctioned oil tankers potentially carrying Russian, Iranian, or Venezuelan crude oil.
At least ten sanctioned vessels tracking in the East China and South China seas are falsely flying under the flag of Tonga, according to Wellington-based Starboard Maritime Intelligence.
Starboard analyst Mark Douglas told RNZ Pacific it would be highly unusual for Tonga to flag oil tankers, given their ship registry closed all the way back in 2002.
"It's just not something that Tonga is known for doing.... if they don't have insurance and they're not well maintained, if there's an accident it would be in the hands of the flag state to fix that problem," he said.
"Tonga is obviously not wanting to deal with this problem, but somebody's trying to pretend that they do."
Douglas said the vessels tracked through a Malaysian port at East Johor, which according to reporting by Bloomberg last year was a notorious place for Iranian crude oil to be rebranded] as Malaysian, before being exported to China.
At the time, there was more crude oil being exported from Malaysia to China than what Malaysia was actually producing, Bloomberg reported.
Another, Douglas said, had made it to the Norwegian Sea headed for Russia.
Starboard Maritime Intelligence said they have tracked 10 "shadow fleet" vessels falsely flying the flag of Tonga. Graphic shows tracking over a period of time between 1 December 2025 and 13 January 2025. Photo: Starboard Maritime Intelligence/Mark Douglas
The ten vessels are subject to sanctions by the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union, among others.
Douglas said the vessels had shadow fleet hallmarks, transmitting false identity signals to skirt authorities.
He said these vessels can easily transmit a false identity, doing so through the global Automatic Identification System (AIS), which port authorities use to stop ships from running into each other.
The first three digits of a vessel's Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) number identify a country's flag.
"You can go into the AIS receiver transmitter, and put an MMSI number which has the first three digits of any other country you want, and now when you're transmitting, you suddenly take on the nationality of that country," Douglas said.
"If you're just taking the information that comes from the ship's AIS, and taking that as the truth and not checking against other systems, then you could very easily think that."
The Min Hang has reportedly been spotted returning to Venezuelan waters among a group of shadow fleet vessels. Graphic shows maritime traffic between 4 January 2026 and 11 January 2026. Photo: Starboard Maritime Intelligence/ Mark Douglas
This comes as US military operation 'Southern Spear' continues to pursue sanctioned oil tankers fleeing a naval blockade in Venezuela.
One of these captures was the Olina, sailing under the false flag of Timor Leste.
ABC reported at least eight other false Timorese flags over the last year, according to their Seafarer's Marine Association.
Another, the Min Hang, transmitting a Cook Islands false flag, has reportedly been spotted directly off the coast of Venezuela as of 12 January, but has yet to be captured.
The Min Hang was registered with Maritime Cook Islands legitimately between March and December of 2024, according to public shipping database Equasis.
MCI has recently distanced themselves from a formerly CI-registered vessel in the Carribean, the Bertha, which is still listed as CI-flagged on websites such as MarineTraffic.
Though Tonga, the Cooks or any other country wouldn't face any direct repercussions for another vessel's false-flagging, Douglas noted it could risk reputational damage if the false AIS data were reported widely.
