Sanctioned Shadow Fleet Ships Linked to Assad Corruption and Looted Ukrainian Grain

Three cargo vessels recently sanctioned by the EU for operating in Russia’s “shadow fleet” were quietly sold out of Syria’s state fleet in 2023 for $1 each to an offshore company in the Seychelles, according to new reporting by OCCRP and its Syrian partner SIRAJ.

The ships—formerly the Finikia, Laodicea, and Souria—had long been owned by Syria’s General Authority for Maritime Transport, but the agency offloaded at least two of them for $1 apiece to Seychelles-based AlHouda Holding, the news organizations said.

Reporters reviewed sales contracts and corporate records indicating that the company’s director at the time, Ali Mohamed Deeb, had extensive ties to regime-linked businesses later sanctioned by the EU. The vessels have since cycled through new names, “false flags,” and periods with AIS tracking turned off while sailing routes between Russia, Crimea, Syria, and the eastern Mediterranean.

Ukrainian officials allege the ships are part of a network that has helped Russia expropriate roughly 15-million tons of Ukrainian grain since 2022. Satellite imagery and ship-tracking data reviewed by OCCRP placed the ships near Sevastopol and other occupied or sensitive ports at various points since the sales.

OCCRP also links the fleet’s recent management to companies associated with Taher Kayali, a Syrian businessman under U.S., UK and EU sanctions for alleged Captagon trafficking.

Sanctions specialists told OCCRP the $1 transfers strongly suggest related-party deals designed to move Syrian state assets into offshore shell entities tied to regime networks before Assad’s ouster—“a textbook example” of the state’s cannibalization, according to Vittorio Maresca di Serracapriola of Karam Shaar Advisory.