Tanker with false IMO number sails in the Barents Sea
After having been banned from German territorial waters, the "Tavian" sailed north along the Norwegian coast en route to Murmansk.
Judging from several ship traffic tracking websites, the oil tanker that sailed along the northern Norwegian coast on January 16 was the "Tavian," a brand new ship with IMO number 1095337.
At Equasis, an electronic shipping information system, the tanker appears as a 57,332 gross tonnage vessel, built in 2025 and sailing under the flag of Tanzania. At the same time, under 'ship status' the Equasis system reports that the vessel "Never Existed."
It turns out that the "Tavian" is sailing under a false IMO number.
The tanker that on January 16 sailed into the Norwegian part of the Barents Sea was actually the 28-year-old Arcusat. The real IMO number of the ship is 9147447 and its current flag state is Cameroon. It has a gross tonnage of 57148 and it has changed its name 11 times since 2013. Before July 1, 2025 the ship was sailing under the name "Tavian."
The ship has been on US sanction lists since 2021. At OpenSanctions, an international database of sanctioned individuals and companies, the tanker is referred to as the Sierra and Sienna. Judging from information in the database, the ship was sanctioned by the US for Venezuela-related reasons.
When the tanker was on its way through the Baltic Sea en route from Primorsk, the oil port near St. Petersburg, to Murmansk, it was denied entry to German territorial waters. The German border guard service suspected that it was sailing under a false flag and with a forged registration number.
According to German media outlets NDR, WDR, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, German authorities turned away a “zombie” tanker that presented false papers. Reportedly, a similar enforcement effort took place in December 2025.
According to the German media, the situation developed on January 10 when the tanker entered German waters near the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein.
The German Police used a helicopter to approach the ship.
The incident has also been reported by the Maritime Executive.
According to an investigation carried out by Lloyd’s List in collaboration with SynMax Intelligence, owners of sanctioned tankers are actively stealing and inventing identities, and deliberately abuse the global ship-tracking system.
The investigation found that sanctioned tankers are systematically hijacking ‘dead’ IMO numbers and live vessel IDs. Some vessels have taken this one step further, sailing under completely invented IMO numbers that do not exist in official registers.
In an conclusion, the investigators argue that "these practices are pushing maritime identity fraud beyond the reach of traditional document‑based compliance and basic AIS screening."
