Following this week’s seizure of a sanctioned ship off the coast of Venezuela, the Trump administration says it will be targeting more oil tankers off the Venezuelan coast. This is, first and foremost, a dramatic escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign targeting Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, whom the White House accuses of facilitating drug trafficking into the United States.

But it’s also the latest salvo in a campaign by Western governments to crack down on the so-called shadow fleet that has allowed countries like Venezuela, Russia, and Iran to continue participating in the global oil trade, despite international sanctions. In the past few days, there’s been yet another major escalation in this campaign, off the coast of Ukraine.

As Vox reported last year, the shadow fleet has been operating for years. Shadow fleet vessels tend to have opaque ownership; the nominal owner is often little more than a PO Box in the Seychelles or Dubai. The ships operate without standard insurance, are often older and less well-maintained than their above-board counterparts, and frequently manipulate their transponders and navigation system to avoid detection. They........

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