The Mysterious Story of Russia's "Shadow Fleet"

As Russia and the West escalate their tensions, the world enacts sanctions mean to cripple the Russian economy -- "you can't sell oil," says the West. Ordinarily, a sanctioned country would have no recourse. Yet, as Ben, Dylan, Matt and Noel discover in tonight's episode, Russia took a different route: a secret navy of ragtag vessels sailing under fake papers, moving fossil fuels -- a genuine Ghost Fleet, immune from international law.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Ahoy, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nola.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you argue,
you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
We're returning to the seas as the wide world of
cargo shipping. Guys, do you remember several years ago when
we learned that you can travel the world as a
passenger on cargo ships.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yes, And we talked about the varying ways you could
end up in that position, some legal, some above board,
if you will.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yes, some above deck for sure, the catches. Even if
you're traveling legally, you have to be flexible with your
arrival dates. So you want to leave, uh, you want
to leave Los Angeles and you want to get to
Hong Kong. You can get there, you know, as long
as you have a three month window of arrival.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Those these boys are big, These cargo ships and they
don't go that fast.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
No, they don't. And they're pooping pollutants through the sea
the entire time, and.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
They're holding a lot of poop in there too, and.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
They're holding a lot I think a lot of times
they flush it.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yeah. Have you heard about this documentary on Netflix called
Poop Cruise?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Watched it right before we went on the cruise.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
Actually, what was that, like, why would you do that
to yourself? Your button for punishments?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
It was it was a fact finding mission. You know,
it happened a long time ago, and certainly not with
the folks we sailed.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
With, that's right. Yeah, our aut obsessions aside. Though the
world literally does run on maritime shipping. There's this byzantine
complex set of international laws and regulations keeping stuff on
the up and up or as we said above deck
across the seas. If you are running any international vessel,

(02:22):
you have insurance, you have transponders, you have legal status,
you got two different kinds of special flags or insigns.
You got a record of the crap you're moving from
point A to point Z. Except when you don't have
most of those things.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, this is the story.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
This is the story.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
We can't wait to share with you folks of Russia's
shadow fleet. Ah, here are the.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Facts, guys, get before we even get into it. I
really didn't think that much about insurance on vessels like
this until this story, Like, until we're covering this, I
didn't think about it. I didn't realize how expensive it
is to ensure all the stuff you could take on
one of those tankers or one of these giant ships.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, it's a big deal, and it's a big deal
for hundreds of thousands of vessels, just like cars. There
are around one hundred thousand loosely categorized merchant ships around
the world, so that doesn't count canoes, kayaks, Kevin Costner's
catamaran from water World, and other smaller stuff.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
Kevin Costner's catamaran. That's fun to.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Say, that's our new tongue twister, right, Kevin Costers catamarant
We need another clause.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Or repeas on the ship and he drinks it up.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
You've got blood, tomato, wood, tomato wood, tomato. Okay, so
you are going to workshop our amazing new water World
tribute song, which it cats into it. We know that
of those one hundred thousand or so estimated merchant ships

(04:14):
about fifty thousand to sixty thousand are big dogs, tankers,
cargo ships. And if you are listening to this episode
and you are human being in the modern era as
we record on Monday, November twenty fourth, twenty twenty five,
you have purchased something that spent time on a cargo ship,

(04:35):
or you have manufactured something that spent time on one
of these vessels, or you have acquired something even unknowingly
that traveled to you via the massive maritime trade system.
What are we say in here?

Speaker 2 (04:50):
We're saying that we've we right now, I personally vastly
underestimate the number of goods that I've purchased that came
over own a ship like that. Like that, I you
imagine that stuff comes from nearby a bit because it
got here so fast Amazon Prime.

Speaker 4 (05:05):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
But that's just because they store all the crap that
comes over on the ships in strategic places throughout the
United States.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
If you live in the US, yeah, yeah, they carry
a lot of stuff. Picture something it probably a version
of it traveled to you via cargo ship. As of
October twenty twenty four, just last year, nearly forty percent
of all that stuff carried across the globe via the

(05:33):
seas is going to be fossil fuels. Forty percent of
global maritime trade oil gas and yeah, coal still a
big business.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
That's astonishing considering how many cargo ships are out there
and how large they are and how much stuff they carry.
Like when you just when you look at those containers,
you know, if you're anywhere near a port like that,
knowing that forty percent of all of that stuff gas, Sorry,
that's mind blowing, I.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Mean, right. And also it's a tricky number because if
we're really thinking it through, we also have to consider
how much fossil fuel those ships themselves digest. Oh you
know what I mean? So is how much of that
forty percent is just their individual gas tanks. I don't know.
It's a question for another evening, but it is a

(06:25):
big business. That's an understatement. It's also understatement to call
it complicated. This global system relies on an army of
merchant marines, ship crews, insurers, as we'll get to, shipbuilders, ports,
production facilities, of course, lawyers, countries of origin or more importantly,

(06:46):
countries of registration, and then obviously the consumers. And I'd
love that point we're bringing up here. You probably don't
see it, folks, unless you work in a related industry
where you spend time at sea, or you live near
a port, right, you probably don't see this behemoth in action.

(07:07):
And maybe we talked a little bit about our time,
you know, on a recent virgin voyage we alluded to earlier.
I don't know about you, guys, but I assume we
were all startled to learn how many cargo vessels are
out there, and how many of the folks we met
working on our voyage spent time on one of these

(07:29):
transit ships or merchant vessels at some point in their career.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Oh yeah, that's very surprising. Well, but at the same time, like,
how else do you get experience on a large vessel
like that unless you're in a naval force of some kind, right,
I mean, that's those are kind of your options. You've got.
You've got a merchant vessel like that, is a cargo ship,
You've got a cruise liner, or a naval ship. Is

(07:56):
there is there something other? I guess a fishing vessel.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Well, usually, like the captains we spoke to the captain
and the deputy captain, they originate from countries that have
maritime colleges, gotcha, proper universities basically for the stuff that
teaches you to wait, let's name it off again, teaches
you to pilot a ship, run a ship, be a firefighter,

(08:22):
have EMT training, and then also low key, although they
didn't say it explicitly, do law enforcement if you have to.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, and potentially defend the ship from pirrating, which is
a real thing still.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Which they told us about too. I mean, the crews
of these ships cr E w wes come from all
over and all sorts of countries also fly their flags
on various vessels. We got to talk a little bit
about the what's word vexillology here flags on ships or ensigns,
which for a while I thought was just the rule

(09:00):
of someone on star Trek on the bridge of star.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
Trek and an insignt Yes, of course, vexillology. Indeed, flags
on ships to your point, been referred to as ensigns
play a very important role in identifying, communicating, offering communication
between various vessels and port authorities, shore stations, as well

(09:24):
as signifying if the ship adheres to certain rules of
the sea or maritime regulations. And these things can tell
you a lot about a particular ship, including the set
of rules that they follow. Each and every vessel sailing
under the flag of a nation is bound to the
maritime rules of that particular country. And this also represents

(09:46):
where a ship is legally registered. But to be clear here,
that may not in fact be where the ship was
originally built, nor may it represent the actual origin country.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
Yeah, the gang signs on the high seas. But what
are you repping? Man? Huh? You REPI upon because you
look Russian to me. Anyways, a little bit of foreshadowing.
Don't fall asleep yet, folks. We promise this is not
just an episode about vexillology or insurance, at least not really. Instead,
it's an exploration of what happens when someone hacks this

(10:22):
Labyriantine system for arguably nefarious purpose. Did you guys ever
go through that phase? It happens to a lot of
kids in the West growing up where you wanted to
be a pirate. Anybody have that phase? Of course? One?

Speaker 4 (10:38):
Well no, but I mean I went through it. I
was fast. I think I like the dread pirate Roberts.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Oh, Princess Bride, Yeah, yeah, I could see you doing that. Man,
we just got to get a sick Zoro mask and.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
She's a dapper fellow. That's for sure. You got Zoro mask.
The bit of the bandana situation, that's what it is.
It's a bandana with like eye holes in it kind
of right.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like if Daredevil Season one could see.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
We'll see now. In my case, I think I saw
the movie Hook too early in my life. Yeah, and
then I just I saw Pirates as bad, very very bad,
and lost boys good or Ruvio good. Hook for a
Hand bad. So I think maybe I just I lost.
I didn't want to be a pirate.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah, I'm with you guys there. On that note, I
with a longstanding aversion to jewelry, instruments of iron and
so on. I thought, I thought I just wouldn't be
cut out for the life of piracy because Privateer, you're
still kind of on the books. But Pirates, at least

(11:49):
per an interview with Morgan Freeman had to have gold
ear rings so that there would be some sort of
payment that could be used for their proper burial. That
is from an interview where he explains why he has
a ear ring.

Speaker 4 (12:03):
Okay, I didn't know that, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well, we weren't able to consult with Morgan on this
one't but we we think he approves and I think
he is probably very pro pirate. We'd love to hear
about your experiences with piracy. Boy, that's opening a door.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
My only experience with piracy is like downloading episodes of
the Sopranos illegally and getting a cease and desist from HBO.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Oh you got a CND early on.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Oh man, how much nowadays would those earrings have to
cost to actually cover the cost of a funeral?

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, it was a different time. Check Out our epis
weirdly solemn on that one. Check Out our episode on
the funeral industry as well. Wasn't expected to bring that
one up, but yeah, the cost of skyrocketing. And it's
weird because the dawn of modern maritime law is pretty

(13:03):
murky because it's a study in competition. It's a study
in a lot of people saying rules for thee but
not for me, and various groups. Ever since we arrived
at what we call modern maritime law today, various groups
have conspired to bypass the global order for one reason

(13:28):
or another. The top three reasons are usually going to
be war or making a profit making some pirate coins,
some smugglers coin, or avoiding sanctions, et cetera. There are
those top three, there are other ones.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
The avoiding sanctions one comes into play in this episode.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
Yeah, pretty high, pretty heavy. That's because there's one country
that keeps popping up again and again, as Cindi Lauper
would say, time after time in these investigations, and that
country is Russia. Other countries have been in the conversation before,

(14:06):
but Russia right now has a collapsing economy, it has
troubles with Wagner and other proxy groups that it's deployed
in its spheres of interest. I really dropped the ball
in the Middle East. There's a war in Ukraine, and
Russia is still very much despite all these issues. It's

(14:29):
a fossil fuel leviathan. It's got a lot of stuff
to sell. It has been sanctioned repeatedly up the wazoo,
and if Russia is stuck to legal actions, they'd be
in a tight spot. They'd be unable to do business
with loads of ordinarily energy hungry countries, some of whom
may surprise you folks as we continue. But the thing

(14:52):
is that is only if they stuck to legal actions,
and they are not. Russia has a ghost.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Fleet, ghost fleet, shadow fleet aka yeah, shadowy, ghostly, sneaky boys.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Sneaky boys. As we're talking offlide, let's do a quick
ad break and figure out what we're talking about. Here's
where it gets crazy, all right, Russia has a ghost fleet.
You'll also hear it called the Russian shadow Fleet. You'll
also hear it called the dark Fleet. These are three

(15:32):
very cool names. These names are so falcon. I wish
I had an operation that we could call a shadow fleet.
I wish one of us did well.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
And to be fair, it is kind of a cooler
name even than the thing that they're doing.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Oh yeah, oh it's so much cooler. It's like that
scene and I think you should leave now where the
one with a baby where he talks about it, the
protagonist talks about his Dangerous Night's Crew and that tour.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Are sloppy steaks Matthew, And do you know that Dangerous
Night's song is Vampire Weekend?

Speaker 3 (16:11):
I only know because I looked it up.

Speaker 4 (16:13):
Yeah, they did it, and they performed it live recently
at a show at the Hollywood Ball and Tim came out.
And also there's another one that that Ben Turnstile did.
They've had a handful of like weird songs that bands did.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
I love also the best singing eulogy in the history
of modern television.

Speaker 4 (16:30):
They're talking about thinking that we Okay, by the way,
freaking banger, my goodness, my gracious. If you're into conspiracy
stuff but aren't afraid of some inn SFW content, I
do highly recommended us. I think we all, I think
we're all.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
We've all got eyes on that we're read onto the
operation Chair Company, which, by the way, scuttle Butt says,
just scored a season renewal, so season two of Chair Companies.

Speaker 4 (16:57):
It's been making some buzz, been making some waves to
segue back into pirate stuff.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Look, I'm going to show you guys some videos. Don't
ask any questions about the tables. Okay, don't talk about
the tables. All right, here we go.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
It's the tables.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah. This is weirdly apropos to the conspiracy at hands
right or at Tentacle, because the Shadow Fleet, ghostly, dark fleet,
whatever you want to call it, it is a clandestine
or open secret network of hundreds upon hundreds of vessels
that Russia currently uses to evade the law sanctions and

(17:35):
price caps imposed back in twenty twenty two by the
G seven and the EU. Essentially, Russia invaded Ukraine their
most recent invasion of Ukraine, and the West said, Okay,
we want to dictate how much energy Russia can sell
to whom it can be sold, and how much this

(17:58):
country is allowed to charge. And so Russia responded by
making a whole secret smuggling navy. It's pretty ballsy move,
but it's it's not original, right, because smuggling is as
old as like the second sailboat.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Uh yeah, what about the.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
Okay, I love that first men. Yeah, first sailboat is official,
and the second sailboat is like, I'll move your grain. Uh,
pirates travel off the grid. I mean basically, at every
point in maritime legal history, somebody has been breaking the rules.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
It reminds me, guys, all of this, this entire topic
reminds me of the episodes we've done before when Russia
annexed Crimea and just needing ports. Right, And I'm just
thinking again about if you look at Russia on a map,
you realize, oh crap, the only real ports that they've
got that make any sense to sail out of for

(18:58):
this kind of stuff that they're trying to do here
are so far flung from other places that they're trying
to get to that shipping for them is a major issue.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, all weather ports they're called, which is part of
why they put so much TLC into Syria because of
the Tartar support.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yes, and the Black Sea there where is located and
just ways to get stuff moved that is a little
easier than sending it on these ships that go through
places where especially if they're sanctions being imposed, it's not
safe for those ships to go.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
No, they will get smacked, they will get clocked. There's
also a lot of controversy when it comes to the
idea of breaking the rules. There's a lot of controversy
around who makes the rules and who has the authority
to stand there and dictate to everybody else, I mean,
whatever you want to call. These fleets tail as old

(19:54):
as time. They smuggle sanctioned goods, and we can make
a strong case that some more sophistic gated drug cartels
in the past possessed small shadow fleets, homemade subs relationships
with the US Coast Guard. Little Skippy does right, They
can get around.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
The smaller fast ships that now we're watching get blown
out of the water right by the United States government,
and you're just going, what is happening?

Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, as Uncle Sam gears toward resource extraction and hamping
down the democratic process by enacting a war of aggression,
by the way, against Venezuela, which is not a huge
drug trafficker, I'm walking down the street for that point.
But if you really try to stop drugs, Venezuela is

(20:43):
a non choice.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
That's the route, right, That's all it is. Venezuela is
the route or part of the route.

Speaker 3 (20:51):
Or yeah, transit country or whatever. But at that point
you might as well just crack down on Guatemala nineteen
fifty four all over again. We know other energy giants
that are not part of the or not friendly to
the Western World order. Even if you think the Western
World Order is a bunch of mean girls, which is

(21:14):
not inaccurate. You see places like Iran, North Korea, and
Venezuela deploying this shadow fleet tactic. In the past, Iran
and Venezuela are mainly going to be trying to bypass
economic sanctions to sell bubbling crude. In the DPRS case,
they're going to try to sell other contraband.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Also which which I don't even know what that would be, genuinely.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
Supernotes, the counterfeit US dollars of I think one hundred
dollars denominations that are actually identifiable because they're of a
higher quality than actual US one hundred dollars bills. And
then methamphetamine. It's a big thing, easy to process or

(22:01):
easy to create. And then in some cases we suspect
maybe touches on nuclear it maybe components that would lend
to nuclear proliferation. Oh wow, okay, yeah, so touchy, touchy stuff.
But Russia is watching all this, and every I mean

(22:21):
every big dog country is watching this. And you know,
they may in public say, oh this is bad. Oh
these guys you know whatever that is where you like
scrape your finger at someone and you're like, tisks, Yeah,
all of them are doing that. But behind closed doors,

(22:43):
they're say, let's figure out this tactic, you know, without
condoning it. If we're in a situation, isn't it better
for us to know what to do. Russia had that conversation.
They played close attention, and they knew that sanctions would
be crippling because their economy depended and depends so heavily

(23:06):
on energy exports, and there are very few ways to
efficiently get that energy export to consumers. You got what
you got pipelines which are stationary, easily identifiable, and easily
fused with. And then you got a few ports that
work the whole year, and they got more ports that

(23:28):
work when the weather complies.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
It's pretty intense. That's a sticky situation to be in,
like knowing how de pendant they are on that stuff,
and then just how difficult it is and how easily
it could be squeezed right by some other group, like
you said, like in the West, it just decides, hey,
these are the new rules. And you know it's tough

(23:50):
when you put yourself in that position of well, how
do we actually get around this? If you are in
that position trying to figure it out, I would say
this strategy seems like it wouldn't work very well because
the ships would get just picked up. But the little
add on, the addendum to it of making it hundreds
of ships rather than just a few dozen ships doing this.

(24:13):
Now we're gonna put hundreds of them, so no matter
how many of them get caught, we are still getting
through what seventy percent or more of our ships.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, and we're selling to people who are not part
of that price cap agreement, so we can dictate the price,
or we could get in a tough situation where we're
moving stuff illegally. Kind of like when there's an imperfect analogy,
but kind of like when you need a bicycle and

(24:44):
a crackhead comes up to you with a bicycle that's
clearly not theirs, but it's a three hundred and fifty
dollars bicycle, but they're going to give it to you
for fifty bucks, oh snap, and a cigarette, a loose cigarette.
So the price is variable here, which comes into the
Grand conspiracy. The leaders of pretty much every country, ethics

(25:09):
and public figureheads aside, the true leadership of a country
is quite intelligent and simply does not get to that
level without being so. So they knew before, probably even
while they were game planning the invasion of Ukraine, their
analysts predicted actually no, for a fact, they predicted sanctions,

(25:29):
and they said, we got to get in front of this.
And so if you go to folks like Alexi Horowitz
Gazi from Planet Money, who also spoke in an MPR
interview recently, Russia put the equivalent of fifteen billion US
dollars into building this new secret navy for all intents

(25:51):
and purposes, because they're thirstiest customers in China, Turkey, and Germany, okay,
and Russia wants to feed these folks. Germany has some
has ports, right, so you could just scoop the dupe
from one part of Russia, send a ship to that
port in Germany, or you could try to go through

(26:12):
a pipeline that would be heavily monitored by the EU,
who is super duper mad at you, right, So the
China doesn't really care about that. Turkey is right there
with the Bosphorus, you know, so you can circumvent the
EU essentially with that. So they began quietly purchasing loads

(26:34):
and loads of retired oil tankers. We gotta emphasize this.
These are not the primo ships. These are not the
nice cars in the front of the dealership parking lot. No.

Speaker 4 (26:47):
In fact, quite the opposite. If Russia hadn't intervened, the
vast majority of these ships would have ended up scrapped.
You know, for parts pretty much all of them are
outdated model. Most of them needed significant repairs and maintenance,
and some were pretty much inoperable, you know, the kinds

(27:07):
of ones that would be put out to.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Pasture and we're gonna put a ton of oil in them.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah, yeah, there are their last legs.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
Well, we know how fleets like that work. I mean,
they're expensive. You look at airplanes and you wonder, why
do the planes that you're you know, flying and still
have ash trays. It's because, like, to replace these things
in their entirety is prohibitively expensive. So you know, when
you have a giant fleet like that, you're gonna you know,
ride them till the wheels or the whatever, the rudders
or the wings fall off. M hmm.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, And that's just an that's an economic decision, but
you do want them to see worthy. Ro Russia is saying, look,
if these are on their last legs, but if we
don't do something, our entire economy is going to be
on its last legs. And so Russia helps facilitate these
purchases and repair, often through proxies. Because modern Russia is

(28:03):
pretty much a kleptocracy. It's run by thieves, right, and
so Russian energy companies and more than a few quote
unquote entrepreneurs rent these out after they're renovated and retrofitted
at exorbitant fees to keep the energy trade flowing. The
exorbitant fees is interesting because who are they charging ultimately themselves?

(28:28):
The money is moving in a circular fashion.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Oh that sounds familiar. Something else we were just talking about. Hmmm,
what was that?

Speaker 1 (28:36):
AI?

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Oh that's right, I was going to say, the global economy.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, exactly, AI for sure though.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
Ooh, that's going to bite bite some people in their
human butts.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
But all right, do we talk about how most of
these have come not? I guess it is most of
them come from Greece.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's this global trade in beater tankers.

Speaker 4 (28:59):
It boom, there's beeter tankers.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
There's this huge price bike and several other countries, notably Greece,
make a killing selling what was honestly gonna be it
was soon to be sea garbage for a quick illicit
glow up of repairs and new operations. If you will
anthropomorphize a bit, if you're a tanker that Greece is

(29:23):
about to throw away, perhaps to those horrifying ship breaking
yards in India, then this is a new life for you.
You've got a new daddy, and he's not gonna put
you in the best house. He's not gonna fix all
your problems, but he'll fix a lot of them, and boom,
you're back in the game kind of. And so we

(29:45):
know by the end of twenty twenty two, again the
price cap sanctioned stuff started by the West in twenty
twenty two. By the end of that same year, Russia
had built a practical navy of these ships. Authorities looking
back estimate that Russia had over six hundred ships as

(30:07):
part of this shadow fleet or ghost fleet by the
end that calendar year, and of those six hundred, four
hundred were renovated tankers. And they didn't stop there.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
Yeah, by December of twenty twenty three, that number had
risen somewhere between two somewhere rather between eleven hundred and
fourteen hundred ships. Some recent estimates posit that the fleet
has more than tripled in size since the beginning of
that operation. So Ben Matt, I guess this begs the
question or up to this point, like what doth the
shadow fleet make? What makes a shadow ship a shadow fleet?

(30:42):
You'd love to go into that a little bit and
talk about some maybe the defining key factors, all of
which I do believe tick some of our conspiracy boxes.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
They do tick the conspiracy boxes. First, let's go back
to something Matt set up so beautifully in the beginning.
Marid ensuresurance. Every Western country has a minimum threshold for insurance,
and it includes stuff like verifying the condition of the
actual ship in a lot of ways, all right, without

(31:12):
getting into the weeds, right or the shallow waters here,
in a lot of ways. It's like owning a car.
You can totally own a car, at least in the
States without insurance, but you can't drive it anywhere.

Speaker 5 (31:25):
Why would that be because you might hit someone, right,
you might do a sick donut in the middle of
traffic because you felt the call of the void.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
And now what happens to everybody else impacted by your actions?
So you got to have insurance. And we're you know,
we have our standing statements about things like health insurance
in developed countries or in the United States. But we
I think we can all agree driving is a privilege,

(31:56):
not a right. Yes, so it makes sense that you
would have to make sure you don't ruin other people's
lives because you're trying to take a left on krog,
which is a specific reference for a very few people
in Atlanta.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah. And so when it comes to cargo ships, you're
ensuring your cargo, right, and like you said, everybody else
around you and these ships specifically, you're ensuring most of
the time fossil fuels, coal, something like that. Right. What
happens when that stuff accidentally spills out all into the
ocean because you got a junker.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
Right exactly. Yeah, And what happens in typical maritime law
is marine insurers get involved. They look at your policy
and they write the ship off as a loss, or
they make people whole financially.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
And they enjoy clean up efforts.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
And part of that is initiating or it should be
initiating clean up efforts. Now, if you got the real
fancy pants stuff, like one of the big oil companies,
then part of your insurance is PR. Yeah. Correct, It's
it's a crisis management, right, it's setting up a proxy

(33:13):
networker matroshka doll of fake call call in eight hundred
numbers that don't really help you and just try to
kick the can of class action down the road.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Guys, we got a big problem there's a bunch of
visible oil floating on the top of the ocean. What
do we do?

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Hmmm, what if we made invisible oil?

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yeah, what if we sprayed it with some stuff?

Speaker 3 (33:34):
Like how about this, gentlemen, we can't take the optics
of all these animals being soaked in oiled. So let's
get with our friends at the New York Times and
let's touch the FBI to touch the rest of main
street media and only show animals who are a sols

(33:54):
like seagulls.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yes, and if we make it like pepsi clear, then
it'll just looked like all the animals went to a
ditty party.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
At the slipping and sliding all over time. At the
very least, we make a deal with the pal Malive
company so that we can have like branded tie ins
with soaping between them.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yes, but jokes aside, guys, we all remember, corrects it
that was? That was the spray that went from airplanes
onto the surface of the ocean when there was a
massive oil spill, And all it did was collect the
oil and send it down to the bottom of the ocean.
So they're literally what you're talking about, Ben. The optics
looked great. The bottom of the ocean and all the

(34:36):
life that was down there was covered in oil.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yes, yeah, absolutely, and a lot of it still is.
And that happened with the benefit of insurance. The issue
with the shadow fleet is that, or the suspected shadow
fleet members, is that something like two thirds of these
loosely identified vessels, when put to the question, have unknown insurers.

(35:04):
What does that mean? It means that italics someone is
apparently paying for upkeep, maintenance, accidents, liability, but good luck
verifying exactly who that someone is. Cough cough, Russia, cough cough.
And that leads us to the second factor, how do
you figure out who owns these ships?

Speaker 4 (35:23):
Well, we were just talking about like VPNs and proxy
networks and stuff like that. It's a bit of that
going on here. Disguising the true origins the true ownership
of these ships is part and parcel of this whole
ghost fleet thing. So remember how we talked about the
importance of those ships flying flags to identify themselves, show
who their allegiances or to who, show who they're repping.

(35:44):
Right In a way, this is very similar to passports
and any international you know, visas and travel documents. So
every ship traveling, especially internationally has to be registered somewhere,
but much like the VPN, Right, is that somewhere necessarily
where you are more retained?

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Uh huh, sure, good ball the Marshall Islands. Right, when's
the last time we hopped on a Marshall Islands boat? Guys,
rhetorical question, At least for the air, this is so weird. Okay,
Let's do another microcosmic example. Let's say you're in a
situation where you have your regular day to day passport.

(36:25):
And by the way, if you are in the United
States and you don't have a passport, do it now?
Pause this, get it now.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Get ye to a passport office.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
It isn't as painful as I suspected it would be
when I resigned.

Speaker 4 (36:40):
It's as backed up now as it used to be.
Either I think a lot of us got them renewed
during COVID or in the thick of COVID when it
was a nightmare. But now I think it's a little
bit more straightforward and less of a weight list. If
I'm not mistaken, I may be speaking out of school there,
but it couldn't possibly be as bad as it was
during COVID.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
You guys are both absolutely right. And we don't write
to us if you want more details, but for now,
if you don't have one, please trust us.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
Get it immediately before it becomes like you know, outlawed
or band who knows man anything it.

Speaker 3 (37:13):
Just pause this, get it.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
This is your apply for a passport interviews.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Thank you, great, congratulations, welcome back. Now the example makes
more sense. Let's say you're in a situation where you
got your regular day to day passport, but you got
to make some moves. You got to make some quiet
moves you want to draw too much attention for one
reason or another. You can legally acquire another passport from

(37:40):
a lesser known country. The Caribbean nations in particular were
once very popular for this, and then go on about
your day. Right now, I'm no longer Dylan Fagan from
the United States. I'm Dylan Fagan from you know, the Bahamas.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
That's a different guy.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
That's a whole different guy.

Speaker 4 (38:00):
Island one of them, island boy.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
It's only illegal if you futs with your name. So
if you are like Thiland Dagan from the Bahamas, first off,
that's very cool Star Wars esque name. Secondly, that would
be illegal for a couple of reasons. But the same
thing can happen legally at sea. When a ship or
its ultimate owners want to muddy their paper trail, want

(38:26):
to avoid taxation or dodge regulations, they fly under what
we call flags of convenience. The flag is the passport
for the ship.

Speaker 4 (38:35):
Well, and while this wouldn't necessarily fall under the category
of what we might call a false flag, it's.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
A vague flag.

Speaker 4 (38:42):
It's night or is it a fault? Is it truly
the titular false?

Speaker 3 (38:44):
It's the etymology, Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yes, And BBC in their reporting literally calls it false flagging.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
Okay, yeah, that's where it comes from. Folks. The more
you know, dot get.

Speaker 4 (38:55):
But technically what they're doing isn't illegal, not at all.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Right, It's controversial, but it really depends upon how you
do it. In fact, it's pretty common because all it
means is that you are, as an owner of a vessel,
you are registering your ship in a different country than
the country of origin or the country you live in,
and that ship flies that country's flag.

Speaker 4 (39:19):
And I guess the reason I had that question of
whether this constituted false flagging is because when we think
of that, the way it sort of evolved. The term
is something that is inherently illegal and misleading.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Oh yeah, yeah, super pejorative, right, Gulf of Tonka false
flag attack. That's great. That's great because it's a maritime example.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Oh yeah, that's a great example. It reminds me of
my son is learning about the Revolutionary War and all
of that stuff in school, and it reminds me of
the US one, Yes, the US one. And it reminds
me a lot of those tactics that were just outside
the bounds of the agreed upon rules of combat right
back in the day for that kind of stuff. That's
something we see an evolution of that kind of those tactics. Right,

(40:02):
are you just doing something that's a little outside the
bounds of the rules and that it makes everybody else go?
But what do we what do we even do about this?
It's it's not it's not in the PRU book.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Have these American dogs not heard of Napoleonic warfare? They're
hiding behind the trees. Get in a line and march
forward as you got Yeah, Or.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Fly the flag that you're supposed to be flying. Dude,
that's the rule.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
I can't believe it. Party foul, party, foul unkill that
guy I call unkill him your cheaters. So this is dark?
What are you talking about it? Yeah, that's what we're
here for. Yeah, because it gets dark earlier and earlier
these days, doesn't it.

Speaker 4 (40:47):
And so take a little vitamin D if that's bumming
you out, by the way, y'all, I started doing that
and it has made all the difference.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
Get some ultra violet therapy. Well they have those lights
apparently where two for the SADS season effective disorder.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
And with the what was the term you used earlier
then something of old tanker booms. Maybe that was it.
It was beater tankers. There's a beater tanker boom in
effect here. And there was also an explosion of flags
of convenience, which we're gonna call them. That's sort of
the soft version of full false flaggery. The Atlantic Council

(41:22):
notes that Gobon as a specific example, and in twenty
twenty three alone it more than doubled its ship registry.
Is this almost like, I mean, maybe my brain is
going to the wrong place. But like the way so
many businesses are incorporated in Delaware, you know, but they're
not based in Delaware. It gives them some not plausible deniability,
but some shelters, and there's various things about it that,

(41:44):
while not inherently illegal, if you see a place that's
registered in Delaware, maybe sometimes it gives you pause.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
Yeah, I like that comparison. All it's a state of convenience.
Flags of convenience are are even a little bit more tricky.
Rushould saying you're down with foc Yeah, you know me
or you don't. You'll know who really owns the ship
after we run it through a ton of different countries
for registration. So like you were saying, the Atlantic Council said,

(42:14):
Yet not only did the Nation of Gabon, which is
not a huge place, not only did it more than
double ships registered under its flag, but of the tankers
that were registered in twenty twenty three, ninety eight percent
that got even the most cursory maintenance check or condition

(42:35):
check were classified as high risk and of and those
ninety eight percent had quote no easily identifiable owner. Cough cough,
Russia cough cough, Wow coalition at cough cough. All right,
they're not all good.

Speaker 4 (42:52):
I was looking for something like that too, Ben, I
was thinking friends, cough cough. But there we go.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah, there's also this thing that happen, which is essentially
a vpning of the flag. Right, So you send it
through one place, you register it there, then you register
it in another place really soon after. Then you re
register it again in a.

Speaker 4 (43:12):
Third place pin pinking.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
And now as somebody like, let's say you get encountered
by some coast Guard ship and they're they're asking you
your credentials just over the radio basically, which is generally
how it happens at first, and you give them your
information like, well, wait, that's you're flying under there. Let's
look up the registration on these guys. Let's tell us
to go back in time a little bit, find the
next registration. Right wait what Estonia?

Speaker 3 (43:36):
Okay, it just wait wait, well yeah, but sorry guys,
it was Estonia, That was the Marshall Islands.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Then it was Little Saint James after that.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Right, did none of those three work? Okay?

Speaker 4 (43:49):
Try jibooty ooh, we going to get I like saying
digibooty like digitmon you know.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
Yeah, also nabokovkugh cough whatever. Is what we're describing here
is a concept called flag hopping by the authorities. We
should mention there's another tactic that shadow fleets use. It
is not uncommon for ships like this to try and
beat me here Dylan just bulk their way through the

(44:20):
whole regulation thing by pretending to be registered somewhere, because
flags are cheap to buy, relatively speaking, It's cheaper than
actually getting registered with a country. Right, you can just
buy the flag. So imagine you're rocking up to passport
control and you're trying to do some NaNs and shenan again,
and you wave a flag from Dubai and you say, yeah,

(44:43):
look at the flag. That's me, homie. All right, good, hang,
have a great day.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
I'm out, all right, Then, no more questions, sir, Please,
you don't have to remove your shoes anymore.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Oh, this is a shoes on airport. Yes, that explains
so much.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, notice how lovely it smells in this general area.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
Is that gasoline?

Speaker 2 (45:08):
It's not shoes.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
It's not shoes. It's brought to you by our friends
at IGU. What is that? It's not shoes.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
Hashtag not shoes.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
Hashtag not shoes. It's it's also I mean, all these
factors lead to one thing. We have ships that may
at first glance come from Liberia. The Marshall Islands, goabon,
et cetera. Basically from anywhere but Russia, and they're carrying
illegal goods and when the sea hits the fan, you
can't find the owners. As a matter of fact, Western

(45:43):
authorities right now twenty twenty five cannot even completely agree
on which ships are part of the shadow fleet. To
be effective, the authorities have to sanction, not the idea,
which they've already done. And of the eleven hundred to
was it an old fourteen hundred and fifteen hundred?

Speaker 4 (46:02):
That is correct?

Speaker 3 (46:02):
So okay that have been identified out there, only around
one hundred and eighteen individual ships have been in some
way sanctu ooh that's eight baby, Oh nice, Okay, mission accomplished,
Go team, You know what I mean? Steaks at Dave
and Busters for everybody sounds a lot.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
I don't on drugs, right, That kind of like, hey,
we're putting some on the table at least.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Yeah, that also makes me wonder European and Aussie friends
write it and let us know, are you familiar with
Dave and Busters. It's a restaurant chain that has games.
When I say games like that, but they I don't
know if that's if they've gone worldwide yet, I hope.

(46:47):
So they're d and B in the Middle East.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
Drum and bass.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
There's definitely drum and bass is there.

Speaker 4 (46:53):
It might be out certain parts, oh right, because of
the bpms are too hot. That's right, you know what though,
I mean our time in the Middle East definitely indicates
that they love some American stuff. And what's more American
than David Busters Mm hmm, this.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Is our we're also giving geopolitical advice. Take that, mackenzie. Anyway,
these Shadow Fleets, by the way, even when they succeed,
things go wrong. Stuff goes horribly wrong for the crews
and the ships all the time. So I think we're
due for a second ad break, and then we got
to talk about when things go wrong. All right, we're back.

(47:39):
Sometimes these ships have accidents, sometimes they have critical malfunctions.
Sometimes they get straight up sabotage. Let's start with the accidents. Okay,
These operations are already pretty off the books, so it's
no surprise that things like ship maintenance and working conditions
often aren't up to snuff. You know, there's not really

(48:00):
an OSHA for these guys, and there's not really a
work please safety seminar thing going.

Speaker 4 (48:06):
On a safety meeting.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
No, they have a don't spill the oil and don't
snitch to the sea cops.

Speaker 4 (48:12):
Have you, guys ever heard of at that moment when
you walk off with your cousins at Thanksgiving to smoke
weed called the safety meeting? Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't
mean to derail with it. I literally learned that yesterday
and I thought that was really funny.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
I've heard it called a couple of different things. The
excursion and then running errands is another one.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
I literally don't know what you guys are talking about.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
It's because you come from a functional So all right,
what example of accidents? Let's go to this one from
January of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
This is really interesting, guys. I learned about oust Luga
from the BBC because they put a handy little map
on one of their stories that I found, And that's
one of the ports I was mentioning earlier at the top,
just thinking about how far flown they are, right and
how far they have to go. So this specific thing
occurred when a tanker, the eventeen eve N TI N

(49:09):
left ust Luga. It was flying Panama's flag and it
was heading for Egypt, and it had guess what, around
one hundred thousand tons of Russian crude oil.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
Yeah, yeah, business is good. Unfortunately, for one reason or another,
our pal the Evington lost power and lost engine power,
full engine powers. Dead in the water along the way.
It didn't make it to Egypt, and it drifted into
Germany's waters, and in February the oh Germany captured it

(49:43):
by the way, and then in February the European Union
put this specific ship on that knotty list of sanctioned vessels.
And then Germany is still investigating the ship, sniffing around,
talking the crew, and as soon as the government of
Germany figures out just how much oil this bad boy
is carrying, they seize it for the.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
Greater good of the German people.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Kind of like how the less ethical law enforcement members
might bust a high school party and then just the
weed disappears.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
A but in this case it would be the booze
because it's fully legal, at least in this state.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's a great point.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Yeah, it's not like busting contraband is busting like a
legitimate resource that is just sitting there. But then it
goes to court, right, because it's yeah, it's a different
kind of court. It's a different version of it. It's
not as simple as you might think. This is the
maritime law, boys.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
Yeah, there's a reason. It's a whole different genre of law. Yeah,
and the case is going to drag on probably legal
quagmire for a few years. But now it appears Russia
got got And if you look at other examples just
real quick, you'll see that it goes back in February twentieth,
twenty twenty three, two Shadow Fleet suspected Shadow Fleet tankers

(51:14):
had to be aided by tugs in a salvage ship
in the Bay Gibraltar. They had both recently changed their
names and their flag registrations. One had changed it to Palau,
the other two Gobon. They went through several different flags
of convenience before that. They didn't have proper insurance, so
taxpayers had to pick up the tab to pay for

(51:37):
those tugs and salvage ships. And then you know, there's
a bunch of other examples. But what we're giving you here, folks,
is a real Western narrative. At this point, institutions like
the Atlantic Council, they want to build this argument that
cracking down on shadow fleets is not about solely resource

(51:58):
control and sanctions. It's about safety, you guys. It's about
saving taxpayer money. It's a good thing, which it is.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
But.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Bah, it's a big butt. It's a certain mix a lot.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
But you know, oh yeah, like is it a sneaky butt.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
It's a sneak I like that. Let's keep that phrase,
you little sneaky button, because.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
There's other stuff you can do with moving quietly and
secretly and under different flags, right.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Oh of course, yes. Uh. And then we get to
the more exciting stuff that goes wrong for the shadow
Fleet skill duggery, special ops, spy adventures. Uh. Let's say
we're on the crew of a shadow Fleet ship and
we are all seasoned sailors. We've been illegally hauling crew

(52:50):
to points abroad. Since we've been at this for a bit,
We've changed our ensign several times. We've made multiple second runs.
It's not our first rodeo, but this time it's different.
We're pulling out of our port. Someone has clocked our
transit pattern. We got complacent, right, We went from the

(53:11):
same point AID to the same point Z too often.
And the seas are watching, so they knew we'd be
back at a specific Russian port to resupply. Boom, we
hear the mines explode. Before you know it, our ship's
going down. There are multiple sabotage operations occurring as we
record against suspected Shadow Fleet vehicles. No one is admitting

(53:37):
that they have done it, but pretty much everyone in
the Intel community that's willing to speak on record says
this can't be your garden variety eco terrorism or you
a lone wolf actor with some bombs and some knowledge
of explosives. This has to be a state level actor
targeting these ships with sophisticated, expensive limpant mines planted by

(54:03):
divers using small submarines. This is not like a hey,
what are you doing next weekend kind of hang out?

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Yeah, this is like Sweden, right, Uh, Sweden's on. I'm
just I'm joking. The BBC followed along on a Swedish
vessel while they were like watching and doing this kind
of thing.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
Well, because oh yeah, yeah, some of these shadow.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Ships have been accused of doing things like dropping anchor
and dragging it to disrupt Internet communications right with undersea
cables and things like that. So you can imagine that
several countries in the world with sufficient naval operations that
could pull off that kind of thing, that kind of sabotage,

(54:44):
which I would say a lot of nations would be
able to do that kind of stuff. They would have
a vested interest in trying to make sure some of
these shadow vessels can't do their own sabotage operations.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
Exactly. Yeah, because think of it from that perspective of
sunk cost. Right, you already have a shadow fleet. I
make it just about oil. There's all kinds of other
fun things to do once you got the boat.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
It's a good to that's a goodies to collect.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Oh and we should also say a limp at mine
is just on the basic thing. Don't try it at home,
but it's it's a mine or an explosive you attach
via magnets to the whole of a thing underwater, so
it's more difficult to detect.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Wow. I like the good old fashioned depth.

Speaker 4 (55:28):
Charge, good old depth charge. I like those big ones
with the spiky things on them, like chains connected to
the ocean floor.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
That's yeah, oh man, this is dark. But this also
becomes a who done it? Atapa? Who done it? Because
officially no one has taken responsibility for these acts at all.
Experts again believe this is likely tied to the Ukrainian conflict,
or at least that's what our folks are saying publicly,

(55:58):
But it could also be just some one or some
ones playing dirty pool to make sure those sanctions go through,
and they may be risking the environment and lives and
the process. I think that leads us all to two
big questions, why does this matter? And then an unexpected controversy.

(56:18):
So riddle is this, folks, Like, why does this matter
at all? I'm listening in Missouri right, I'm according to
our reviews, I listened to this show to fall asleep
and help me with my insomnia. Or I'm driving at
three am in a truck way in the American interior.
Why do I care about Russian shadow vessels?

Speaker 4 (56:38):
Well, you probably don't, but if you were to start
trying to care, this is how you go it because
it really isn't something that crosses most of our radars
in our day to day lives, but it matters because
it affects the profit margins of the global energy corporations
and global energy markets, private and state owned and run

(57:00):
like so a lot of factors go into that price
that you pay at the gas pump, which we know
is a super hot button political issue that gets bandied
around here in the United States, and so literally everyone
involved getting that gas to your car wants a bigger
piece of the action year over a year, because capitalism
promises that thing, as in year over year growth forever,

(57:24):
which just doesn't seem sustainable to any of usm it
also requires.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
It, right promises, and yes, exactly, thou shalt. So it's
the big thou shalt of capitalism as a religion. We
should write the Commandments of capitalism.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
Be interesting.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
It's already a thing, surely. Yeah, there's like a motivational speaker,
all right, so we'll table that one. Well, I still
think we should work on that song idea we came
up with. Anyway, The modern world, like you were saying, Noel,
this builds on your point, is addicted to fossile fuel
and powerful interest. Even those who ordinarily hate each other
about everything else powerful interest want the world to stay

(58:04):
addicted to this resource because that status quo is quite
profitable for them. However, every single petro dollar Russia makes,
or wan or a ruble or whatever every single profit
Russia makes selling energy is another bit of profit funding
bellicose actions abroad. It doesn't just like when they sell

(58:27):
this oil. It doesn't magically turn into a big pile
of rubles that Daddy Vlad slumbers on like Smoug and
the Lord of the Rings.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
Dude, how has no one done a political cartoon of this?
It needs to have sure Smig with Daddy laddie face.
I'm sure it has.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
Uh. If not, you're first of the post, my friend.

Speaker 4 (58:47):
If only I were a cartoonist. But I'll pass along
the idea to some people that are better at arts
than me.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
We're calling turbo agent Turbo, which is a true story, folks.
I can't believe we actually have an age and Turbo
that we could call for things.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
I'm actually doing yoga with him in the morning. I
will bring it up.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Yes, please do, please do tell them we said hi.
So we have to add to this that Russia is
in what we call a wartime economy, which means those
profits go straight into making new drones, new munitions, new
weapons of war. By imposing sanctions, the West was hoping
to cripple the Russian war economy. At the root, it

(59:25):
is a logical move, but sanctions make things even more complicated.
Check out our earlier episode for more on that one.
Remember our sanctions episode. I had to look back up
surprisingly controversial, and we've been talking about it from a

(59:45):
Western perspective, and I think we did an okay job
with that one. I mean, if we look at it
from a non Western perspective, let's do it, Okay, Dylan,
Yes you're Russia. Just put yourself in that state of
mind congratulation.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Hello, it's me anthropomorphic Russia, Dystoa.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Okay, Dylan's Russia and Dylan as Russia. You've got a
lot of a very specific resource you need to move it.
You also have a ton of people who genuinely can't
wait to buy it, and so you logically ask yourself, well,
who the heck are these bozos from the West to interfere?
Why on earth can't I Daddy Dylan or Philan Daiga

(01:00:27):
as a willing seller? Why can't I do business with
a willing buyer? It's my stuff, it's their money. I mean,
I was thinking of it this way. This is imperfect.
But let's say we're in Georgia and we're selling a
few cars to someone out west in Arizona. Why the
hell is Maine inserting itself in the conversation, Like, what

(01:00:51):
do you have to do with us Maine? Right? And
then Maine might say, oh, we care about emissions and
Stephen king in lobster roles, but making emissions. But then
the more cynical would say, well, Maine just has its
own cars, sayn't care about the environment or the greater good.

(01:01:11):
They prefer people in Arizona by their cars and not yours,
so they're going to shut you down, Georgia. There's no
high fluting, altruistic concern. There's just their concern about making
more money in the car market. How do we feel
about that analogy?

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
I think it's good, and it is a product of
all the capitalism shenanigans that we always talk about, So
I don't know if it's good in general, but it's
a good analogy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
It's a really good analogy. It's making me think about
the members of the G seven and what an interesting
group of countries to impose those sanctions and tell you
what to do as Russia, right, especially if you take
it all the way back to the context of World
War Two, when you're looking at Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,

(01:01:58):
the United Kingdom, and the United States. Like, you're talking
about people, you know, countries from both sides of that
war that you then got embroiled in the Cold War with,
and they're just telling you what to do because they
don't like what you did before.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
Yeah, where do you get off, buddy? Is what both
sides are.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Listen here made Well, it really is interesting because for me,
just depending on where you live, you're going to hear
the perspective of that country, right and the powers of
whatever country you're in right now. So when you think
about those specific countries inmposing their own will on you
like that, I can imagine it being a very f

(01:02:43):
you kind of situation and response.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
One hundred percent. Yeah, we're not we're not arguing or
we're not staking a flag on any particular hill here.
We're saying the logic and the perspective of these of
these various stakeholders, these forces in conflict.

Speaker 4 (01:03:01):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:01):
Add to that, let's say you're China and you're getting
a lot of pressure not to not to buy energy
from Russia, and you're saying, well, I have to have this.
I am incredibly quickly growing economy. And also, hey Sam,
because you're talking uncle Sam, where the hell do you

(01:03:22):
get off? Man? What are you You're telling me what
to do with my money? What are you my dad?

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
No, he's your uncle.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Oh and you know what, you don't need to trade
oil from Russia to China dollars. You also don't need
a shattle fleet because you can just send that by
train or buy a tanker truck or whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
Yeah, and so uh so there are other countries in
the mix, right, the consumers of this supply chain, and
they're saying, well, who are you to interfere? Why are
you the authority? Was there some meeting where you guys
decided that you get to make the rules, And then
they would respond, yeah, it was the end of world warship?

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
Yeah, And then we have this thing we get together.
We call it the G seven. There's kind of eight
because he used I guess involved, but whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
Yeah, and there's like it gets so the names the
names were just bad because they're like, oh, now it's
the G six plus one and now it's you Now
I got that six party. People love in international affairs,
which is pretty much just anthropology with a tie on
people love putting numbers in the names of official things,

(01:04:34):
not just dates. It sounds more specific and legit.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
Well, the other piece of complexity here is that Russia
was at that table for a while. Oh yeah, up
until twenty fourteen. I think that's crimea times. And that's
when they got kicked out or left, I suppose. So
it is weird that that same group of people where
Russia used to have US Sea at the table, is

(01:04:59):
imposing this stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Is it weird though, because it seems like a classic
retaliatory breakup move to me.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
I think you're right. I think that's what makes it weird.
That's a thing that makes it weird when they come
back and they're like, oh hey, hey.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
Yeah, those are and look, a lot of people involved
in those negotiations are professional bureaucrats who aren't making direct
money off shadow fleet deals, and a lot of them
are actually just so you know, folks, pretty collegiate with
each other. They're like, oh, Darren, it's good to see
you again. Man. This Black Sea stuff is crazy, right,

(01:05:37):
did you check out the buffet?

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
Yeah, we do have to do something about that, but
for now, you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
Know, yeah, yeah, do you have do you still have
the shellfish thing because they got they got shrimp over here. Weird.
It's usually usually don't have shrinks.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
It's the langesteine ones with you know the heads.

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):
Yeah, you gotta watch out for that contamination.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
Yeah, no, that's a good point. That's a good point.
People are dying, you know, I want your throat to
close up.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, So I guess we should start
the meeting or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
But I guess okay, hang on, let me let me
show you guys this tiktokal. I mean, that is kind
of how it goes. And we're we know, we're being
dark gallows humor casual about this, but it leads us
to some very serious questions the billion ruble question, and

(01:06:25):
we're we're just doing that to be cute. We're not
going to do the equivalency. The billion ruble question is
what happens next. We all know enforcement is spotty. Customers
keep buying, Russia keeps selling and sailing as well. But
we can confirm the next time you look out at
a tanker or a cargo ship, pay attention to that flag.
It could be hiding the stuff they don't want you

(01:06:46):
to know. We got it, guys, we got to ask
anybody with merchant, marine, naval or general maritime experience to
contact us. We want to hear your thoughts, folks. We
want to hear what you have heard about this, especially
if you're in a different country and we want to
know how the narrative is being spun to you. So

(01:07:07):
call us on the phone, always send us an email,
or find us on the lines by.

Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
All means do those things. You can find us on
the aforementioned lines at the handle conspiracy stuff where we
exist on Facebook with our Facebook group here is where
it gets crazy. On xa, Twitter, and on YouTube. We
have video content for you just to just roll around in,
like Daddy Vlad Smog and his pile of rubles. You
can also find this on Instagram and TikTok at the
handle conspiracy stuff show.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. Turn those letters into numbers and then
give the number a call when you call, and give
yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we
can use your name and message within the message. If
you would instead like to send us an email, you
can do that too.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware yet out a fraid. Sometimes
the void rights back. You can contact us on the email,
contact us in the crossroads at midnight or a mirror
in the dark. Also check out our locally run numbers
stations thanks to Illumination Global Unlimited. You know, just pop

(01:08:13):
by ask us for a random fact conspiracy at iHeartRadio
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Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
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