China helps the Iranian Islamic regime evade United States sanctions

A recent CBS News report has revealed that China is using its so-called "dark fleet" to carry out secret maritime transfers of Iranian oil in order to evade sanctions imposed by the United States on Tehran's tankers.

This fleet consists of vessels that operate with their transponders turned off, preventing their identification and tracking by radar, and use concealment techniques such as covering their names and identifications with tarps, in a clear display of deliberately deceptive practices.

A press mission sent to an area located about 80 nautical miles from Singapore observed four crude oil transfers between ships, all carried out by vessels belonging to this dark fleet.

China strengthens the Ayatollah by buying his oil.

The pattern detected by investigators describes that the tankers, filled with Iranian oil, depart from the Persian Gulf and cross the Strait of Malacca until they reach the Riau Archipelago in Indonesia.

There, they transfer the crude oil to vessels that then transport it to China, the main buyer of Iranian oil, responsible for 90% of Tehran's exports. According to a U.S. Congressional report published in 2024, these operations caused up to 70 billion dollars in revenue for Iran, money that strengthens its regime and its nuclear program.

During a single day, 12 ship-to-ship transfers were recorded in that area of the archipelago, an unprecedented number indicating that Iran and China are intensifying this illegal activity.

United States sanctions a maritime empire connected to the regime.

In response to these revelations and as part of a broader action plan, the United States Department of the Treasury imposed new sanctions on more than 50 Iranian individuals and entities.

This way, it targeted more than 50 vessels linked to a maritime transport network controlled by Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani. The latter is the son of Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader, who had already been sanctioned in 2020.

The Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, explained that the sanctions are part of the administration's "maximum pressure" campaignTrump that seeks to financially strangle the Islamic regime's elites.

Bessent stated that the Shamkhani family has built a maritime transport empire to launder billions of dollars from the global sale of Iranian and Russian oil, mainly to buyers in China.