The vessel appeared to be legitimate on paper, Maltese flagged, Greek-owned, with compliant EU paperwork. However, legitimacy in oil trading has nothing to do with flags and filings. Our compliance team managed to trace the corporate chain through six shell entities in Cyprus, the BVI, and Hong Kong. The end of that chain? The son-in-law of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. If the deal had executed, our client could have faced frozen payments, being blacklisted, and potential prosecution? Welcome to the modern compliance battlefield, where sanctions change weekly and ownership is buried three layers deep.
If you are not verifying ultimate beneficiaries, you are not compliance. We offer real-time vessel vetting and forensic memory ownership audits.
2024’s Newest Tricks
These aren’t hypotheticals – these are day-to-day strategies in the current, high-stakes world of oil trading. In the Bermuda Bank Shuffle, money goes through three pristine banks before ultimately ending up with a sanctioned entity on the fourth. Meanwhile, the Ghost Fleet Charade employs hacked AIS data and nautical brown paint for color change while at sea to cover the fact they are using blacklisted tankers. And in the Blend Loophole, the traders inadvertently mix 49% Russian crude with 51% Kazakh origin making it “legal” per EU import regulations right away.
The protocols have not changed, but the sophistication of those circumventing them has.
If you are not working to uncover these tactics, you are already compromised. Let us help. Please inquire about our forensic compliance and advisory services.
How Terra’s Compliance Works
Our compliance process is real deal, not just a cursory review. It is described in detail in The Document Autopsy. We look at every certificate to find a font discrepancy, which is often the red flag with a forgery. The PDFs we have seen metadata for make it easy to find out where “official” files come from. “Official” files are easy to undermine if, for example, the emailed date/time stamp makes no sense relative to the claimed route of a shipment.
Then we want to know the Physical Trail. We verify port calls based on our proprietary log records compared to what other people claim. We analyze the mix of nationalities of the crew in their movements that signal reflagging of the vessels, and trace the bunker fuel receipts to verify the moves of the tankers.
Meaningful due diligence follows the dark shadows of the ghosts along the routes they created until they take shape. If you are looking at things at face value in their current state, you are in a compromised position.
When We Said No
These aren’t hypotheticals, they’re real red flags we’ve intercepted in the last six months.
- A “Swiss” trader who couldn’t provide a corporate email or landline, just a Gmail address and a Telegram handle.
- A supposed cargo of EN590 claimed to be stored at a terminal, except the coordinates led to an empty field when checked on Google Earth.
- Payment terms insisting on cryptocurrency “for speed,” but actually designed to bypass traceability.
In oil trading, fraud wears a tailored suit. If your counterparty can’t pass the most basic verification steps, walk away, fast. We can show you how.
Your Simple Compliance Checklist
In today’s murky trading environment, surface-level checks aren’t enough. A vessel name can be spoofed, but the IMO number is unique and traceable. Corporate documents? They must be notarized and verified, not just PDFs in your inbox. And when terms mention “alternative payment channels” or “flexible documentation,” it’s often code for illicit routing, sanction evasion, or forgery.
Our Turkish client nearly entered a nightmare, what looked like legitimate Middle Eastern crude turned out to be Venezuelan Merle blend. We caught it mid-process through forensic vessel tracking and avoided massive OFAC penalties.
Sleep soundly with our compliance shield. Get protected today.
