US sanctions shipping company, targeting Iran and Houthi rebels

The US Department of Treasury unveiled on March 15 new sanctions on shipping company Vishnu Inc and its oil tanker accused of delivering illicit shipments to China in support of Iran and Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Treasury said the Lady Sofia, a Suezmax oil tanker owned by the Marshall Islands-registered company Vishnu Inc, engaged in a ship-to-ship transfer with the recently sanctioned vessel Mehle. The Mehle, disguised as a nonexistent vessel called the Amor, used identification spoofing technology to falsely broadcast its location as the South China Sea while offloading its cargo to the Lady Sofia near Singapore, according to the department.

Treasury on Jan. 12 identified the Mehle as property of Cielo Maritime Ltd, which was sanctioned for having assisted Sa'id al-Jamal, an accused Houthi financial facilitator that the US Office of Foreign Assets Control first designated and sanctioned in June 2021.

"The United States is steadfast in its commitment to countering terrorist financing and will continue to use all available means to disrupt significant ongoing illicit commercial activity," US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a March 15 statement.

The most recent action was the latest in a series of US sanctions designed to target Iran's sale of commodities in support of its Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force and Houthi rebels, which have conducted attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes since November.

The US military has conducted multiple rounds of airstrikes in Yemen in an attempt to deter the Houthis from attacking ships traversing the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In a March 14 televised speech, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi promised to escalate the attacks. A merchant vessel was damaged by a missile strike in the Red Sea off Yemen on March 15.

According to a March 6 S&P Global Commodities at Sea report, the use of ship-to-ship transfers to elude Western sanctions -- particularly to clandestinely transfer Russian oil products, often using vessels previously linked to Iran and Venezuela -- has spiked in recent months.