Maritime Capability
Dark Vessel Detection
Find vessels that have deliberately disabled their AIS. Satellite-verified detection fills the gaps when the signal goes dark.
The Problem
When the signal stops, the intelligence stops.
Dark vessels are ships that have deliberately disabled their AIS transponders to avoid detection. AIS is the cooperative signal conventional monitoring depends on. When a vessel turns it off, it disappears from AIS-only platforms.
Sanctioned vessels go dark to evade enforcement; smugglers to avoid interception; illegal fishing fleets to operate in protected waters. State-sponsored dark fleets have expanded dramatically, driven by sanctions on Russian, Iranian, and Venezuelan oil: a parallel shipping infrastructure operating almost entirely outside conventional monitoring.
How Theia Detects
We find the vessels that aren’t broadcasting.
01 / Detect
SAR Detection
Synthetic aperture radar scans ocean areas and identifies vessel-sized objects regardless of weather, time of day, or transponder status, with no emitted signal required.
02 / Confirm
Optical Confirmation
High-resolution satellite imagery confirms SAR detections, enabling vessel classification, size estimation, and behavioral context.
03 / Correlate
Cross-Referencing
Satellite-detected vessels are cross-referenced against known AIS positions. Detected by satellite but not broadcasting is flagged as dark.
04 / Attribute
Attribution
Dark detections feed Theia’s attribution pipeline: behavioral analysis, historical patterns, and multi-source intelligence identify the vessel even when AIS is off.
Shadow Fleet Tracking
A parallel system, tracked continuously.
Since 2022, sanctions on Russian crude have driven the formation of a parallel shipping infrastructure: hundreds of aging tankers operating under opaque ownership, frequently disabling AIS during sanctioned voyages.
Theia tracks shadow fleet activity continuously: the vessels, the routes, the ship-to-ship transfer hotspots, and the ownership patterns that define this parallel system. For governments enforcing sanctions, insurers assessing exposure, and traders verifying cargo origin, shadow fleet visibility has moved from useful to essential.
By the Numbers
Dark activity, quantified.
147,000+
Dark vessel detections
40M+ km²
Earth’s surface analyzed daily
Global
All major ocean basins and chokepoints
Use Cases
Where dark vessel detection matters.
Sanctions Enforcement
Maritime Insurance
Commodity Flow Verification
Environmental & Fisheries
Related Capabilities
Going dark is rarely the only tactic.
Signal Integrity
AIS Spoofing Detection
When vessels lie about who or where they are instead of going dark.
Dark vessels connect directly to the deception tactics Theia tracks across the maritime domain.
Get Started
See dark vessel detection in action.
Request a demonstration and see how satellite-verified intelligence reveals what AIS-dependent platforms miss.