Ship Stuck in Hormuz Since March; Owner is Sanctioned Iranian Oil Tycoon Shamkhani
A maritime tracker revealed that a ship reported as recently grounded in the Strait of Hormuz has actually been stuck there since March and belongs to an operation run by sanctioned Iranian oil magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani.
Maritime monitoring service TankerTrackers.com said on Thursday that a ship which Iranian media reported had run aground in the Strait of Hormuz after using a “US-suggested route” has in fact been stuck in the same spot since March. It identified the vessel as the Arista, which, while Comoros-flagged, is part of an operation managed by the sanctioned Iranian oil magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani.
Shamkhani is an Iranian oil shipping magnate hit with multiple Western sanctions. He is the son of the late Ali Shamkhani, a senior political adviser to Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ali Shamkhani was reportedly killed in the first Israeli-US strikes on Tehran on February 28.
In March, the Sarajevo-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reported that Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani and his brother used aliases and Caribbean “golden passports” to amass a $29 million property portfolio in Dubai.
The US Treasury, which has sanctioned the Shamkhani shipping empire, says it is part of a massive Iranian and Russian oil smuggling ring. According to the Treasury, the Shamkhani network uses front companies to buy Iranian and Russian oil, falsifies shipping documents, and frequently transfers oil between vessels. Additional profits are funneled through hedge funds and other money-laundering operations.
The European Commission states that Shamkhani uses the company Milavous Group Ltd to blend crude oil with various Russian petroleum products and rebrand it for export, thereby concealing its origin. Shamkhani has not publicly responded to these allegations.
Shamkhani was first sanctioned by the US last July, with additional US Treasury sanctions announced in April. The EU also has sanctions on him, describing him as a central player in Russia’s “shadow fleet”. In August, the UK imposed sanctions including an asset freeze, director disqualification, and travel ban.
