Reported by Jared Malsin

Istanbul — In a gray four-story office building above a nightclub with a black door here, a company founded by a Turkish sock and underwear magnate has transformed into one of the world’s largest shipowners transporting Russian oil.

The firm, Beks Ship Management, has bought 37 ships since 2021, many of them aging oil tankers, spending more than half a billion dollars in a little over two years and increasing the value of its fleet 10-fold.

Companies such as Beks are a critical element in Russia’s attempts to keep supplying oil around the world and fund its war in Ukraine.

The fleet now includes hundreds of vessels around the world, many owned by companies in Greece, India and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Turkey. Many evade Western sanctions by operating outside the usual industry standards, often forgoing insurance with the P&I Clubs, the global networks that insure some 90% of the world’s commercial shipping. Some use a parallel Russian insurance system set up since the war began.

As of February this year, Beks was the fourth-largest shipowner in the Russian oil trade, according to shipping data analyzed by Global Witness, an anticorruption group that has campaigned on Ukraine’s behalf for tougher sanctions.

Cemil Ersoz, a board member and founding partner of the company, said the firm financed the ships from banks in France, China, Japan, Taiwan and Australia but declined to name the lenders due to what he said were confidentiality agreements. None of the funding came from Russia, he said.

“We work not only with Russia. We work everywhere. We do all necessary sanction checks with our English lawyers,” Ersoz said. He added that the insurance was provided by “mainly Lloyd’s and European markets,” but didn’t explain why the ships didn’t appear in the P&I database. Lloyd’s is an insurance market in London.

Read full report: https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/the-ghost-fleet-helping-russia-evade-sanctions-and-pursue-its-war-in-ukraine-19e77a0c