September 13-2013
Three of the eight tankers the US Treasury pinpointed for helping Iran evade sanctions last spring have been sold for demolition, according to data from IHS Maritime.
In March, the Treasury froze the US assets of Dimitris Cambis, a Greek businessman, after saying he bought the eight tankers with capital provided by Iran and used the tankers to load Iranian oil. The Treasury said the tankers then offloaded the oil into other tankers that were often half-filled with oil from other countries. Those other tankers then delivered the oil to countries while listing the oil as coming from somewhere other than Iran.
Cambis said at the time the allegations were “very bad rumors created by our competitors.”
The sales of the Bicas, Atlantic and Caribo appeared on IHS Maritime’s database in July and this month. Each of the vessels is capable of hauling 2 million barrels of oil.
The tankers probably are being demolished because of their age, Sverre Bjorn Svenning, an analyst at Fearnley Consultants A/S in Oslo, told Bloomberg news.
They were built more than 16 years ago and are worth as much in scrap as they are as operating ships, he said.
The fate of the remaining eight tankers is unknown.