Guyana has welcomed US sanctions against an alleged maritime fraud network that it says made ships appear to be registered under the Guyanese flag. The US Treasury says false registrations and certificates helped vessels carrying Iranian oil evade restrictions.
Guyana’s Maritime Administration Department, known as MARAD, said on Thursday 5 November that the network had used an entity calling itself the International Maritime Safety Agency of Guyana to present vessels as Guyana-registered. The US sanctions, announced a day earlier, target India-based Suniel Kumar Sharma, Jaspreet Preeti Shahid and other people and entities.
The US Treasury says the network set up websites purporting to offer services such as vessel registration, seafarer certification and ship classification on behalf of governments that had given it no authority. Treasury identified Guyana as one of several jurisdictions whose names were used.
It cited the Majestic X, an oil tanker the US boarded in the Indian Ocean in April. Treasury says the vessel was carrying Iranian oil and falsely claiming Guyanese registration at the time. Sharma told Lloyd’s List he had left the ship-registration business months earlier and denied responsibility for the current operations.
MARAD said Guyana had raised fraudulent vessel registration at international and regional shipping forums, including a maritime security symposium in Antigua and Barbuda in July. The department said it would continue working with foreign maritime and enforcement authorities to protect the integrity of its ship registry.
Sources used for this report6 verified links
- Guyana Maritime Administration Department statement, 5 November
- US Treasury sanctions announcement, 4 November
- Lloyd’s List — Sharma denies current involvement
- Pentagon archive still — image attribution
- US Department of Defense — use of official imagery
- Hero photograph — ImagePerson / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
