A growing fleet of shadowy cargo vessels operating around Taiwan has drawn renewed scrutiny after a Financial Times investigation found that many ships placed on Taipei’s maritime security blacklist have links to international networks previously implicated in sanctions evasion and smuggling operations involving North Korea.
The investigation, conducted by the Financial Times in collaboration with open-source research group C4ADS and maritime intelligence platform Starboard, found that dozens of vessels monitored by Taiwan have connections to companies or individuals previously identified in United Nations reports as having suspected involvement in illegal shipping activities.
The findings come as Taiwan has increased surveillance of suspicious vessels following the cutting of two subsea cables last year. The island’s government created a blacklist of ships considered potential security threats, particularly vessels that frequently remained near Taiwan’s coastline or displayed unusual maritime behaviour.
Taiwan’s internal blacklist, obtained by the Financial Times, has expanded from 52 vessels to 98. The list includes ships linked to Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese and third-country owners. Many of the vessels operate under flags from countries with limited regulatory oversight, including Sierra Leone, Togo, Tanzania, Mongolia and Cameroon.
The Financial Times investigation found that at least 20 vessels on Taiwan’s blacklist are, or were previously, owned or managed by companies or individuals linked by UN monitors to suspected North Korea sanctions evasion activities. Among them are two vessels connected by Taiwanese authorities to incidents involving damage to subsea cables in early 2025.
One of the vessels, the Xing Shun 39, crossed the location of a Taiwan-US telecommunications cable when the link was damaged in January 2025 before disappearing before authorities could detain it. The vessel is registered in Tanzania and is owned by a Hong Kong company controlled by mainland Chinese interests.
The vessel’s previous manager, Weihai Hairun Shipping Co Ltd, based in Shandong, had been identified by UN monitors in connection with North Korea sanctions concerns after another vessel it previously managed began operating in North Korea in 2023. Weihai Hairun told the Financial Times it had no knowledge of matters involving the Xing Shun 39 after management of the ship was transferred.
The second vessel, the Hong Tai 58, became a focus of Taiwanese authorities after its captain was convicted by a Taiwan court of intentionally damaging a cable off the island in February 2025. Before the incident, Taiwan port records showed the vessel had made repeated visits to Taiwanese ports in 2023 and 2024 while identifying its owner as Do Young Shipping Co Ltd, a company registered in the Marshall Islands.
Do Young Shipping had previously been named in a 2019 investigation by C4ADS and The New York Times, which found that a vessel owned by the company was involved in transporting two bulletproof Mercedes-Maybach vehicles to North Korea in 2018, violating UN sanctions. UN monitoring reports have also referenced the company’s activities.
Andrew Boling, lead analyst at C4ADS, told the Financial Times that the links demonstrated the reach of international networks involved in illicit maritime activity. He said such networks were driven by financial interests rather than political loyalties and could work with different actors, including state-linked entities.
The investigation also found evidence of sophisticated methods used by shadow fleet vessels to conceal their identities. Ships frequently change flags, ownership structures and identification details, while some manipulate automatic identification system signals used for maritime tracking.
Starboard analyst Megan Charley said some vessels were not simply disabling their tracking systems but engaging in complex identity changes. According to Starboard analysis, some vessels had used multiple false identities over short periods while operating near sensitive maritime infrastructure.
Taiwanese officials told the Financial Times that intelligence assessments indicated some cargo ships operating around the island were taking direct orders from Chinese naval vessels. One senior official described the activity as part of China’s “grey zone tactics” against Taiwan.
However, the investigation found that not all vessels on the blacklist were connected to Chinese interests. Many companies behind the ships had shareholders or beneficial owners from Taiwan or other countries.
Taiwan’s coastguard said monitoring efforts had reduced suspicious activity. Hsieh Ching-chin, deputy director of Taiwan’s coastguard, said the number of problematic foreign-flagged vessels operating around Taiwan had declined significantly after the blacklist was introduced. Starboard data showed that during the first three months of the year, 14 of the 98 blacklisted vessels were detected near Taiwan while loitering or masking their identities, almost half the number recorded during the same period a year earlier.
Despite the decline among blacklisted vessels, wider maritime activity remains difficult to monitor. Starboard data showed that more than 1,000 cargo ships and nearly 400 tankers inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone displayed unusual activity during the first three months of the year, including prolonged tracking gaps, abnormal manoeuvres or meetings at sea.
Moritz Lehmann, a dark vessel expert at Starboard, said static blacklists were insufficient against ships that continually change their identities. He said identifying high-risk vessels before incidents occur remains a challenge for protecting critical maritime infrastructure.
The investigation highlights the growing difficulty faced by Taiwan and international authorities in tracking vessels that operate through complex ownership structures, changing identities and networks previously associated with sanctions evasion.
