Black market supply chains, Persian gulf stories

 Supply chains around the world are reacting to disruptions caused by Covid and other things. And those are mostly uncontroversial, uncontested legal supply chains.  For black markets things are even tougher. Here are two stories, about oil and arms, from the Persian gulf. Both are from the WSJ:

Smuggled Iranian fuel and secret nighttime transfers: Seafarers recount how it’s done  By Katie McQue

"The secret transfers usually take place at night to evade detection by regional coast guards. The ships anchor in the Persian Gulf just outside the territorial limits of the United Arab Emirates, and then, individually, small boats carrying smuggled Iranian diesel shift their loads to the waiting vessels, according to seafarers who have witnessed the trade.

“It is a big chain, with fishing boats sailing up to give diesel to a waiting tanker. It takes four to five days because boats come one by one,” said a 27-year-old Indian seafarer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said he had been employed by a Dubai-based shipping company that smuggled Iranian fuel to Somalia.

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"In addition to the nighttime transfers at sea, Iranian diesel bound for international markets is exported on tankers setting sail from Iran with the origin of the shipment forged to make it look as though it came from Iraq or the UAE, according to a third seafarer and three experts in security and energy affairs.

"Because of the profit margins, this trade was highly lucrative even before the United States pulled out of the nuclear deal. Iran has some of the world’s cheapest fuel prices thanks to very low production costs, heavy government subsidies and a weak currency. But the reimposed economic sanctions have given this business a further boost as smugglers seek to evade restrictions on Iranian oil exports. 

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Iran Navy Port Emerges as Key to Alleged Weapons Smuggling to Yemen, U.N. Report Says  By Benoit Faucon  and Dion Nissenbaum

"Thousands of rocket launchers, machine guns, sniper rifles and other weapons seized in the Arabian Sea by the U.S. Navy in recent months likely originated from a single port in Iran, according to a confidential United Nations report that provides some of the most detailed evidence that Tehran is exporting arms to Yemen and elsewhere.

"The draft report prepared by a U.N. Security Council panel of experts on Yemen said small wooden boats and overland transport were used in attempts to smuggle weapons made in Russia, China and Iran along routes to Yemen that the U.S. has tried for years to shut down. The boats left from the Iranian port of Jask on the Sea of Oman, the U.N. report said, citing interviews with the boat’s Yemeni crews and data from navigational instruments found on board."