Rachel Abrams

So let's start at the very beginning.

What is a ghost fleet or shadow fleet?

Got it.

Okay.

So do you have any sense, given the fact that this is literally called a shadow fleet, of how much of the world's oil is transported this way?

Yeah.

So obviously sanctions are meant to hurt countries economically.

But what are the goals in these specific cases?

Basically, nobody's stopping them, even though technically there are sanctions in place.

OK, so let's talk about what happened in December.

What specifically did we start seeing?

So basically, suddenly, after years of not enforcing these sanctions, the U.S.

now seems very serious about stopping these ghost fleets.

What do you mean by disappeared?

A zombie race?

Christiane, before the break, you described this kind of cat and mouse game that the U.S.

has been playing with these ships and this question of whether the U.S.

will ultimately be successful in enforcing its sanctions, specifically with these 16 oil tankers, which, as you described, seem to have just sort of disappeared from Venezuelan waters.

You had mentioned that you and our colleagues wanted to set out to find out where they'd gone.

Tell us how you started doing that.