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How a shadow fleet found safe harbour in Berbera Port — and how someone made sure you wouldn’t know about it
KEY POINTS
- A U.S. Treasury-designated vessel linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force docked at Berbera Port in February 2026, with government tugs assisting its berthing.
- SOMGAS, the LPG arm of the Hormuud conglomerate, and Horn Petroleum, a subsidiary of Dahabshiil Group, each received half of the vessel’s cargo — the first delivery of its kind documented at a Somaliland port.
- The same vessel was struck by an Israeli drone at a Houthi-controlled Yemeni port in September 2025; its crew of 27 was taken hostage at gunpoint and required Pakistani diplomatic intervention to secure release.
- Seven additional vessels with sanctions or shadow fleet indicators called Berbera within the same 30-day window, four sharing sequential callsigns from the same Comoros registration batch.
- A former U.S. Ambassador to Somalia is registered with the Department of Justice as a foreign agent for Hormuud Telecom, tasked with securing the conglomerate access to the U.S. banking system.
- Three Berbera port officials were detained days after the vessel’s departure. No charges have been made public. The conglomerate principals who accepted the cargo have not been questioned.
On the evening of September 17, 2025, an Israeli drone found its target at Ras Isa port on Yemen’s Red Sea coast. The vessel it struck was carrying LPG (liquefied petroleum gas — primarily propane and butane) for the Houthi militiamen who control the port. A tank exploded. Fire spread across the deck. The crew of twenty-seven — twenty-four Pakistanis, two Sri Lankans, one Nepali — fought it for days.
Then the Houthis came aboard.
They forced the crew back onto a burning ship. It took three weeks, the intervention of Pakistan’s embassies in Oman and Saudi Arabia, and the direct engagement of Pakistani security services to get them off. Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi confirmed the hostage situation and its resolution on his official account on September 27, 2025.
Five months later, that same vessel — renamed, re-flagged, its paperwork showing Iraqi origin — sailed into Berbera. Government tugs guided it to berth. The Port Authority assigned it a slip. It offloaded its cargo. Half went to the LPG arm of Somaliland’s largest telecom and energy conglomerate. Half went to the fuel subsidiary of the country’s largest remittance company. Nine days after it arrived, the government quietly expelled it. No statement was issued. The cargo was already in the tanks.
This is an investigation into how that happened — and how it was made to look like nothing happened at all.
The Ship the Port Authority Helped Dock
The vessel was CLIFTON (IMO 9102198).
CLIFTON is formally designated by the U.S. Treasury as blocked property under counterterrorism sanctions. Its link to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) — the branch of the Iranian military that funds and arms Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — is documented in two separate OFAC federal register notices and visible on the front page of every major maritime tracking platform in the world. VesselFinder displays a prominent “Sanctions & Bans: US (OFAC)” banner at the top of its vessel profile. A port authority with an internet connection can find it in under sixty seconds.
Providing material services to a designated vessel — tug assistance, berth assignment, port entry permits — constitutes potential material support under Executive Order 13224, Somaliland’s primary exposure under U.S. secondary sanctions law.
The Berbera Port Authority’s Director, Ali Diriye, is a presidential appointee. He did not respond to multiple calls and written questions from this publication.
The question of which institution bears primary responsibility for screening a vessel at Berbera is, for OFAC’s purposes, a secondary one. Port Authority tugs do not berth a vessel the terminal did not book. The terminal contracted the delivery, nominated the berth, and accepted the cargo. The Port Authority’s employees physically put their hands on the ship. Both acts carry legal weight under sanctions law. Jurisdictional lines drawn between two Somaliland government bodies do not dissolve the underlying obligation either assumed the moment CLIFTON entered the port.
A Ship of Many Names, One Function
Built in 1995 as EEKLO, the vessel has cycled through six identities — FUJI GAS, QUEEN LUCA, EAGLE PRIDE, CLIPPER, and finally CLIFTON — each rename paired with a flag change engineered to reset its history in port records. Maritime databases log sanctions flags against a vessel’s current identity; a renamed vessel briefly appears clean. This is not an accident of the registration system. It is the point of it.
In December 2022, OFAC designated it as property of Elvegard Shipping Ltd., a Marshall Islands front company established by associates of Turkish sanctions-evader Sitki Ayan to purchase vessels on behalf of the IRGC-QF. His associate Kasim Oztas personally arranged the transfer of millions of dollars for the acquisition. In April 2025, Treasury updated the designation with language that should have ended any ambiguity: the vessel “continues to operate, despite its designated status, and transported Iranian oil and a recent shipment of butane and propane destined for Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.”
That was the Ras Isa run. The one that ended with twenty-seven sailors trapped on a burning ship.
After the crew was released, the vessel disappeared. It resurfaced at Basrah Oil Terminal Anchorage, Iraq, where it sat for twenty-two days. Iran and Iraq share the same petrochemical basin; falsifying bills of lading with Iraqi origin is a documented, repeatedly prosecuted OFAC enforcement target. A vessel loads cargo in hours, not weeks. Twenty-two days in Basrah produces paperwork.
According to a government official with direct knowledge of Berbera’s oil terminal operations, CLIFTON’s cargo was divided between two consignees: SOMGAS, the LPG trading arm of the Hormuud conglomerate, and Horn Petroleum, the fuel distribution subsidiary of the Dahabshiil Group. Both of Somaliland’s dominant conglomerates took delivery from the same OFAC-designated vessel on the same day.
CLIFTON departed Berbera on March 5. No public statement was issued. No action was taken against SOMGAS, Horn Petroleum, or the Port Authority.
The Registered Fleet
CLIFTON is the most documented vessel calling Berbera. It is not the only one.
Within a single 30-day window ending March 4, 2026, this investigation confirmed seven further vessels at or en route to Berbera carrying sanctions or shadow fleet indicators. Four share sequential callsigns in the same Comoros registration block — D6A3171 through D6A3174. Sequential callsigns in the same batch don’t happen by accident. They happen when someone submits the applications at the same time.
GULF KING (IMO 9100504, callsign D6A3171) is a Comoros-flagged dry bulk vessel that departed Asaluyeh, Iran on February 18 and arrived Berbera February 27 — a direct, unbroken run. Asaluyeh is the onshore hub of Iran’s South Pars gas field complex, the world’s largest natural gas reservoir. Whatever its cargo, the origin is not in dispute.
BERBERA STAR 7 (IMO 9166156, callsign D6A3174) — a Chemical/Oil Products Tanker of 15,748 DWT — surfaced at Berbera in January 2026 following a 93-day AIS blackout in the Arabian Sea. Upon departing on February 3, it broadcast “Berbera” as its onward destination: the port it was leaving. Declaring your port of departure as your destination is a textbook technique to defeat automated tracking. A vessel named BERBERA STAR 7 implies vessels 1 through 6. Numbered fleets earn those names from routes regular enough to warrant the designation.
PRINCE KHALED (IMO 9496874, callsign D6A3172) was tracked in August 2025 heading for “YE HOD ALLSYRIANCREW” — maritime database notation for Hodeidah, Yemen, the Houthi-controlled port — at 8.6 knots. It then went dark. Ninety-four days later it reappeared in the Arabian Sea heading toward Berbera at 2.3 knots. A vessel in transit does not move at 2.3 knots. A vessel conducting a ship-to-ship transfer does.
D6A3173 — the callsign between PRINCE KHALED and BERBERA STAR 7 — remains unidentified. It belongs to the same registration batch.
The Feeder Network
Beyond the Comoros bloc, this investigation identified four further vessels exhibiting the identity manipulation and AIS obstruction patterns that OFAC, MARAD, and Lloyd’s List designate as primary indicators of Iranian shadow fleet operations — and the UAE hub through which Iranian petroleum is laundered before final delivery to the Horn of Africa.
SAMA 2 (IMO 9035826, Comoros, callsign D6A3068) is an oil products tanker of 10,926 DWT whose recent port history documents the UAE laundering layer with unusual clarity:
| Port | Arrival | Departure |
|---|---|---|
| Al Hamriyah Free Zone, UAE | Dec 27, 2025 | Feb 1, 2026 |
| Sharjah, UAE | Feb 15 | Feb 18 |
| Sohar, Oman | Feb 23 | Feb 24 |
| Berbera | En route per AIS | — |
Al Hamriyah Free Zone is the registered address of three OFAC-designated Iranian oil trading companies: Sea Route Ship Management FZE (IRAN-EO13846), Manarat Alkhaleej Marine Services FZE (IRAN-EO13846), and Phoenix Ship Management FZE (IRAN-EO13902, designated December 2025). Hamriyah is a documented commingling and re-documentation hub for Iranian petroleum entering UAE-origin paper chains. Thirty-five days at that address, a brief Omani stop, then Berbera: that is a loading, laundering, and delivery cycle.
RIDER (IMO 9017628) operates under at least two MMSI numbers across two flag states — Palau and St Kitts & Nevis — a recognised shadow fleet indicator. Its last documented port before Berbera was Kandla, India, a principal staging point on the shadow fleet’s Iran-to-East-Africa circuit.
PORTLAND S (IMO 9217462) maintained a multi-month AIS blackout before surfacing at Salalah, Oman — a documented ship-to-ship transfer staging point — and arriving Berbera on February 25.
USKO (IMO 8721442, Cameroon) carries three MMSI numbers against a single IMO: USKO (613003586), BK USKO (613941600), and DSK1 (613919202). Multiple identities against one IMO is textbook deceptive shipping practice. Its callsign series TJMC matches two OFAC-designated Iranian tankers — ZEVS (TJMC822) and LEXI — both sanctioned under EO13846 for transporting Iranian crude.
The Company Behind the Cargo Has Been Here Before
The Hormuud conglomerate is not new to this kind of scrutiny.
Al-Barakaat, Hormuud’s predecessor and the vehicle through which founding principal Ahmed Nur Ali Jim’ale built his financial empire, was designated by OFAC on November 7, 2001 — among the first actions issued after the September 11 attacks. More than twenty affiliated companies were blocked simultaneously. Jim’ale was personally designated.
The U.S. government later delisted both, concluding the evidence did not sustain the original designation. That outcome has become a rhetorical shield, deployed reflexively whenever scrutiny resurfaces. Delisting is not exoneration, and the shield obscures the more consequential question: what was built in Al-Barakaat’s place.
The UN Security Council’s own documentation answers it directly: “Hormuud Telecommunications was created by former leaders of Al-Barakaat in an attempt to reestablish themselves as a dominant telecom provider in Somalia.” The founding personnel were the same. The ambition was the same. Hormuud has since grown into a conglomerate controlling 81% of Somaliland’s SIM market through Telesom, LPG distribution through SOMGAS, construction through Buruuj, banking through Salama Bank, and mobile money through ZAAD. In a territory with no functioning central bank and a government that runs on conglomerate-issued credit, this is not market dominance. It is the economy.
SOMGAS received half the cargo from an IRGC-Qods Force designated vessel. SOMGAS TRADE, the group’s UAE trading entity, operates from Dubai — within U.S. secondary sanctions enforcement jurisdiction. The question for Hormuud’s banking correspondents, its international partners, and the lobbyist in Washington now on its payroll is whether any of them knew.
The Lobbyist in the Room
On September 25, 2024, Larry André Jr. registered as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. His client: Hormuud Telecom. Registration number: 7468. Stated mission: correct “unfair, inaccurate, and outdated perceptions” about the company, and secure it access to the U.S. banking system.
André is a 38-year career diplomat — U.S. Ambassador to Somalia from February 2022 to May 2023, Ambassador to Djibouti from 2018 to 2021, Ambassador to Mauritania from 2014 to 2017. In those postings he held Top Secret clearances and received regular classified briefings on regional financial networks, terrorism financing channels, and Horn of Africa security threats.
He retired in May 2023. Sixteen months later he was on Hormuud’s payroll, registered with the Department of Justice, lobbying to open American correspondent banking channels for a company whose LPG subsidiary was, as of February 2026, taking delivery from an IRGC-designated vessel at Berbera Port.
André did not respond to questions from this publication.
The gap between what he knew as Ambassador and what he is now paid to argue is not a footnote. It is a question about disclosure — what U.S. law requires of someone in his position when their client’s activities intersect with the classified threat landscape they spent a career reviewing.
Two Conglomerates, One Unnamed Vessel
The pattern this investigation documents is a fleet, not a single vessel. But one delivery offers an unusually direct window into how that fleet is managed when a ship cannot be named in public.
In August 2025, Horn Petroleum held a ceremony at Berbera Port celebrating what it described as the largest fuel delivery in the territory’s history: approximately 50,000 cubic metres of fuel products. Dahabshiil CEO Abdirashid Duale attended in person and was quoted across multiple outlets. Coverage ran in Capital FM, Horn Tribune, WARYATV, and The Star. Photographs circulated on social media. Video footage was published and widely viewed.
The vessel’s name appears in none of it.
This publication reviewed the video and photographic material in detail. The footage shows terminal infrastructure, officials at the podium, fuel tanks under filling operations. What it does not show — despite the logistical specificity of every other detail — is the vessel at berth. When camera angles reach the water, they find the anchorage. They do not find a ship. Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the delivery have confirmed to this publication that this was not an oversight. The vessel’s identity was deliberately withheld from all communications surrounding the event.
A vessel’s name is not commercially sensitive. It is broadcast publicly on AIS and printed on every port document from the moment it arrives. Its methodical removal from an event attended by a CEO, covered by four outlets, and documented on video does not have a benign interpretation.
When the video shows the terminal but not the berth, when four outlets cover the ceremony and none prints the ship’s name, when the CEO stands at the podium and the vessel remains nameless — that is not a communications failure. That is a communications decision.
Dahabshiil’s remittance business processes hundreds of millions of dollars annually through correspondent banking relationships in the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union — relationships that carry mandatory sanctions due diligence obligations in every jurisdiction where those banks are chartered. A finding that its petroleum subsidiary systematically accepted shadow fleet cargo while concealing vessel identities from its banking partners, the public, and the press is not merely a legal problem. It is an existential one for the remittance architecture that moves the Somali diaspora’s money home.
What the Record Shows
Ali Diriye has directed the Berbera Port Authority since his presidential appointment. On February 24, 2026, tugs under his operational command guided CLIFTON into berth, ran its lines, and enabled a cargo offload that lasted nine days. CLIFTON’s OFAC designation is displayed on the front page of VesselFinder — the same platform used by every shipping agent, port operator, and customs official in Somaliland. Diriye did not respond to calls or written questions.
SOMGAS — Hormuud’s LPG trading arm, operating internationally through SOMGAS TRADE in Dubai — received half of CLIFTON’s cargo. Hormuud’s predecessor was designated by OFAC five weeks after September 11. The UN Security Council records that Hormuud was built by that predecessor’s leadership. The company’s Washington lobbyist is a former U.S. Ambassador who spent three decades receiving classified terrorism financing briefings on the Horn of Africa. SOMGAS TRADE’s Dubai address places it squarely within U.S. secondary sanctions jurisdiction. Neither SOMGAS nor Hormuud responded to questions.
Horn Petroleum received the other half. Its parent company Dahabshiil processes hundreds of millions of dollars annually through U.S., UK, and EU correspondent banks — institutions with mandatory sanctions due diligence obligations under the laws of every jurisdiction where they are chartered. In August 2025, Horn Petroleum’s CEO attended a public ceremony for the largest fuel delivery in Berbera’s history. Four outlets covered it. The vessel’s name appeared in none of them. Multiple sources confirmed to this publication the omission was deliberate. Dahabshiil did not respond to questions.
According to multiple sources familiar with the events of the CLIFTON , the Somaliland government expelled CLIFTON on March 5, nine days after arrival, after its cargo had been fully offloaded — then said nothing. It has announced no investigation of the consignees, disclosed no legal basis for detaining three port officials in the days that followed, and issued no public acknowledgement that anything at Berbera Port requires explanation. The Presidency did not respond to questions. The Attorney General’s office did not respond to questions.
The record is what it is. The parties named in this investigation know what they did and did not do. Their silence is part of the record too.
The Pattern, and What It Required
It would be a mistake to read CLIFTON as an anomaly that slipped through a functioning compliance system. The evidence suggests it was a designated vessel entering a port already normalised to this traffic.
GULF KING had been running direct from Asaluyeh before CLIFTON arrived. BERBERA STAR 7 had completed multiple Berbera calls. RIDER and PORTLAND S cycled through the same anchorage on the same schedule. None triggered any documented Port Authority screening response. None prompted questions. None generated a public record of anything other than routine berth operations.
Three port officials are now in custody — detained without public charges, without a statement, and with the conglomerate principals who contracted and accepted the delivery untouched. If the arrests are connected to CLIFTON, they are the first acknowledgement by any Somaliland institution that what happened on February 24 may constitute a criminal matter. If they are unrelated, that coincidence will require its own explanation. Either way, detaining mid-level officials while the decisions that enabled this transaction remain unexamined in the offices above them is a response calibrated to contain, not to account.
CLIFTON did not succeed because the system failed. It succeeded because the system was not designed to catch it. The designation was the only thing distinguishing CLIFTON from any other vessel in that fleet — and even that was not caught until after the cargo was ashore and the ship was gone. That outcome did not require malice. It required the institutional confidence of a port that had run this traffic for years without once being asked the first question.
The Cargo Is In The Tanks
One designated vessel at a port is a compliance failure. Eight vessels with sanctions or shadow fleet indicators — registered in coordinated callsign blocks, cycling through OFAC-designated UAE re-documentation hubs, departing confirmed Iranian terminals, running the Houthi supply circuit to the Horn of Africa, converging on the same port within thirty days — is a supply chain. Supply chains require buyers, logistics, finance, and a port that does not ask questions.
What separates Berbera from a port that stumbled is the evidence of active concealment. The vessel name removed from four outlets. The ceremony footage that never shows the berth. The bills of lading that say Basrah. The vessel that broadcast “Berbera” as its destination from Berbera. These are not errors. They are decisions — made by people who understood precisely what the designation meant and chose, at each decision point, to proceed.
The IRGC-Qods Force funds Hamas tunnels, Hezbollah rockets, and the Houthi drones that have killed sailors in the Red Sea. That is where this money goes — not in the abstract, but in the specific. The vessel that discharged its cargo into Somaliland’s fuel supply in February 2026 was, four months earlier, delivering LPG to those same Houthis at Ras Isa, where a drone struck it and its crew was taken hostage at gunpoint. The transaction at Berbera feeds the financial network that finances the next delivery.
Somaliland has spent thirty years building a case for itself — governed where Somalia is not, accountable where others aren’t, deserving of the recognition it has never received. That case rests on its institutions. On the proposition that when obligations exist, someone honours them. On the idea that the rules are not merely decorative.
The tugs that berthed CLIFTON are still sitting in Berbera Port. No policy was changed. No screening requirement was enacted. No institution has publicly acknowledged that anything it did was wrong. The next vessel on this circuit will need berthing too. There is nothing in place to make that outcome different from the last one.
SOMGAS, Hormuud Telecom, the Berbera Port Authority, Berbera Oil Terminals, Ministry of Commerce, Horn Petroleum, and Dahabshiil Group were contacted for comment. None responded.
Notice: This is an article by Somaliland Chronicle. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Under this license, all reprints and non-commercial distribution of this work is permitted.
