REGULATORS and compliance officers who track identity‑scrubbing tankers may need to update their manuals yet again.

A new Lloyd’s List investigation in collaboration with SynMax Intelligence found that the practice of “zombie ships” is becoming increasingly complicated, while other forms of International Maritime Organization number fraud are quickly emerging to satisfy the sanctioned community’s demand for “clean” identities.

Together, these tactics sketch a stark picture. Under the twin pressures of geopolitical upheaval and ever‑tighter sanctions, the game of maritime identity has moved to a level where traditional document-heavy compliance tools are in danger of being left behind.

Macho Queen

Macho Queen (IMO: 9238868) is a very large crude carrier that should have disappeared from mainstream shipping once the US Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned it on August 21, 2025.

Instead, over the following months it emerged under a new identity, stealing the IMO number of a scrapped vessel and taking the MMSI of an active ship, while carrying sanctioned Iranian crude.

An IMO ship identification number is a permanent and unique identifier assigned to ships for identification purposes. The numbers are issued by S&P Global on behalf of the IMO. IMO numbers do not get reassigned after a ship goes to the recycling yard, and it is meant to stay with a vessel through ownership and flag changes.

A Maritime Mobile Service Identity number is a unique nine-digit number assigned to a vessel by the flag state for identifying and communicating via radio and AIS systems. The MMSI number is meant to indicate what flag a vessel is flying, but this number can be manipulated manually by those on board the ship.

AIS still showed Macho Queen under its real IMO number and MMSI just prior to the Ofac designation, when, according to Vortexa, it took on around 2m barrels of Iranian crude from another Ofac‑designated VLCC Tifani (IMO: 9273337) off Malaysia via a ship-to-ship transfer. The vessel continued to broadcast its assigned IMO number only until August 22.

The next phase was outright identity fraud.

On September 26, Macho Queen re‑emerged as Lavin. It used the dead IMO number of Pedrot (IMO: 9177686), a tanker scrapped in 2018 and an anomalous MMSI affiliated with landlocked Mali, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence data.

On October 9, Lavin dropped the Mali MMSI and adopted a new one suggesting it reflagged to Comoros.

That Comoros-affiliated MMSI was already in use by another tanker, Guly (IMO: 9256236), which started transmitting the number just two days prior.

At the time, tracking data showed Guly lingering at anchorage off Sohar after departing the Iraqi port of Khor al Zubair on September 3.

On October 10, Lavin, aka Macho Queen, reached waters off China’s refining hub of Shandong province; shortly afterwards its AIS signal disappears entirely.

Cargo‑flow analytics helped fill the gap. According to Vortexa, the vessel discharged the Iranian crude it loaded from Tifani at Dongjiakou on October 21, presenting to the port as Lavin rather than Macho Queen.

Panda and Koen

The Macho Queen case is not an outlier. Lloyd’s List has recently identified two other tankers using dead IMO numbers to distance themselves from their true identities.

SynMax has identified the sanctioned ships masking as dead tankers as ex-Panda (IMO: 9284582) and Koen (IMO: 9199127).

The 105,194 dwt Panda was first designated by Ofac on January 10, 2025. Since April 2025 it has not used its real IMO number and, instead, it has cycled through two dead IMO numbers under the name Birth Young, according to SynMax.

From April to May 2025, the vessel used the IMO number belonging to Oceania (IMO: 9233313), a tanker broken up in August 2021, while broadcasting a MMSI number linked to the Guyana flag registry.

The IMO’s Global Integrated Shipping Information System database indicates Birth Young was fraudulently flying the Guyana flag.

Birth Young dropped Oceania’s IMO number in mid-May, focusing on using another dead IMO, previously belonging to Aframax River (IMO: 9259173), now paired with an MMSI affiliated with Gambia.

Analysis of AIS data reveals Birth Young started experimenting with this IMO number as early of April.

Vessel-tracking data shows that since August the ship has remained at anchor off the east coast of Malaysia. However, it previously spent several days between June 24 and 26, in waters off Qingdao and Rizhao in Shandong.

Long range two tanker Koen (IMO: 9199127), also sanctioned first by Ofac on January 10, follows a similar pattern. It’s assigned IMO was last transmitted in July 2025 with a MMSI affiliated with the fraudulent registry of Benin after several months-long AIS gap.

Koen is now using the IMO number that belonged to Rada (IMO: 9213301), a shadow fleet* tanker scrapped in November 2024.

Rada’s IMO number first reappeared in April 2025 on a vessel named Brave M, which was indicating itself as being flagged with Guyana. Brave M then “reflags”, picking up a MMSI affiliated with Comoros.

IMO’s GISIS indicates Brave M’s flag is unknown.

Izumo and Tia

Two further cases — Izumo (IMO: 9249324) and Tia (IMO: 9147447) — show the scope of identity fraud happening among the shadow fleet.

The 149,995 dwt Izumo was sanctioned by Ofac on October 2, 2024. The last time the suezmax tanker used its own IMO was in February 2025, when it was trading as Glistar and broadcasting an MMSI affiliated with Guyana.

Then IMO number 1107697 — belonging to a China‑flagged tug Feng Shou Xiao Niu — suddenly appeared on AIS attached to a tanker‑type profile under the name Tiko. A Guyana MMSI was used, but this differs to the one associated with Glistar, making it difficult to track the identity back to Izumo.

By March 2025, this identity morphs into Homya (IMO: 1107697), now under a Tanzania flag, the name under which the vessel currently trades.

On the other hand, the aframax Tia (IMO: 9147447), sanctioned by Ofac on August 9, 2024, goes a step further: its current identity relies on a completely fabricated IMO number.

The fake IMO 1095337 does not exist in IMO’s GISIS.

Tia’s real IMO was last seen in AIS data in October 2024.

On May 20, 2025, the non‑existent IMO number appeared in AIS transmissions with the name Arcusat, using a Guyana‑linked MMSI.

This is not the same Guyana MMSI previously associated with Tia’s real identity, which the IMO indicates is fraudulent.

In July 2025, Arcusat switched to a Cameroon MMSI, before renaming to Tavian at the end of that month.

The vessel left China’s Zhoushan port in May this year.

It sailed west, eventually disabling its AIS data in the Arabian Sea. It reappeared more than 40 days later in the Gulf of Oman.

It continued westbound entering the Mediterranean in September, and later calling at Russia’s port of Primorsk on October 15.

Tavian has recently passed through the Danish straits and is sailing towards Russia’s Baltic ports.