The informal fleet of crude oil tankers operating quietly in Venezuela under Nicolas Maduro is now starting to come to light. This follows the recent capture of Maduro, shedding light on how the South American nation tried to avoid US sanctions.

The supertanker Marbella, which had been off the radar for over a year, activated its transponder this past weekend. It was found off the coast of Venezuela, carrying 1.9 million barrels of oil, according to ship tracking data from Bloomberg. The Marbella is now part of efforts by the US government along with traders like Vitol Group and Trafigura Group to sell this oil.

The so-called dark fleet played a crucial role in keeping Maduro's regime afloat, as oil was their main revenue source, funding everything from food and medicine to weapons. These ships kept their locations, identities, and destinations hidden to escape detection, allowing Venezuela to keep its oil production going, at one point reaching a high of 1 million barrels per day.

Many of these “ghost ships” hide their locations by disabling or faking their GPS signals to avoid sanctions. Last year, a fleet of 71 large supertankers, each about the length of three football fields, helped deliver 400,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil daily to refineries in China. This means nearly six ships were sailing quietly through Venezuelan waters each month.

Among the tankers that altered their GPS was the supertanker Rene, which frequently transported sanctioned oil to Asia. At the end of December, it appeared to be near China but just 12 days later, its GPS showed it was actually off the Venezuelan coast. Given that the journey from China to Venezuela can take up to 50 days, this seems unlikely.

As soon as Maduro was captured on January 3, many hidden vessels began revealing their locations, with the US aiming to take control of Venezuela’s oil resources. President Donald Trump hopes to rebuild the country's economy through its oil sector and is looking for oil drillers to invest $100 billion to improve the deteriorating infrastructure.

Trafigura and Vitol are assisting the US government in marketing as much as 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil. They have already received an initial shipment of 4.83 million barrels that was on ghost vessels, which is set to be discharged in the Caribbean islands.

The Marbella, carrying oil that Vitol is selling, is currently headed to the South Riding Point storage facility in the Bahamas.