Panama Law Firm Was Tied to Iran’s Shadow Fleet Three Years Before Treasury Sanctioned It

When was the Panama law firm Karnakis and Karnakis first publicly tied to Iran’s shadow fleet, which of its companies were sanctioned before it was, how openly did it operate, and what does its network look like now that the Treasury Department has sanctioned it?

The earliest public report found that names the firm is a Lloyd’s List investigation published November 17, 2023, which said ships carrying Iranian gas had been sold since March 2022 to shell companies registered to an associate of the firm. The Treasury Department sanctioned the firm on October 21, 2026, nearly three years later, six days after its separate designation of Iraq’s International Development Bank, saying it had registered shadow-fleet shipping companies “for years.” By then, OFAC had already sanctioned three companies Treasury says the firm set up and four more that Greek and Panamanian news outlets reported it served as resident agent, along with the seven ships they owned. Today, two tankers owned by companies Treasury says the firm set up broadcast new flags, and seven cargo ships managed by Roxette Maritime Shipping and Trading S.A., a company for which Treasury says the firm is the corporate agent, are blocked.

Editor’s note: On October 21, 2026, OFAC designated Karnakis and Karnakis, five people tied to the firm, Roxette Maritime Shipping and Trading S.A., and Roxette’s seven cargo ships under Executive Order 13902, which Treasury says “targets the Iranian petroleum and petrochemical sectors.” The same action is covered in OctoProbe’s companion report on Whales Shipping Line. In this article, “designated” refers to a sanctions action; claims by news outlets and advocacy groups are attributed to them.

When Were Karnakis and Karnakis and Its Network First Accused of Sanctions Evasion?

The earliest public document found that names the firm is a November 17, 2023, investigation by the shipping newspaper Lloyd’s List into a fleet of aging liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers. It reported that all but five of the carriers tied to a London-based company director “have been sold since March 2022 to shell companies registered to an associate in Panamanian law firm Karnakis and Karnakis, which serves as the companies’ corporate agents, public records show.” It added that “their trading activity remains largely unchanged, and they continue to deploy deceptive shipping practices.” That director is not on OFAC’s list, and this article does not name her.

Lloyd’s List did not accuse the firm or the companies of breaking sanctions. It wrote that there was “no suggestion” that the director, her restaurant, “or any companies mentioned at any point have directly breached sanctions or were engaged in illegal activity.” It said, “The associate from Karnakis and Karnakis did not respond to an email for comment.” The same report linked the fleet to Caspian Petro Chemical FZE, a Dubai company whose British affiliate listed Seyed Asadoollah Emamjomeh as managing director, according to the U.K. company filings it cited. Treasury would later say the firm built the “corporate architecture” for Emamjomeh’s shipping business.

Some of the firm’s alleged clients had faced U.S. action earlier. OFAC first designated the Qatirji Company, a Syrian fuel trader, on September 6, 2018, saying it “facilitates fuel trade between the regime and ISIS.” Treasury says Elias, a company the firm set up, later “served as a front company for the Al-Qatirji Company.” Those earlier actions targeted the clients, not the firm. The Lloyd’s List report is the earliest public allegation found; an earlier one may exist that this search did not reach.

Editor’s note: OctoProbe found no report naming the firm or the five designated people in connection with sanctions before November 17, 2023. Corporate records list company appointments for Karnakis lawyers going back to 1998; those records are not allegations of wrongdoing.

How Long Has the Network Operated?

The answer depends on the source. Lloyd’s List dates the sales to firm-registered companies from March 2022, about four years and seven months before the October 21, 2026, designation. Among the companies Treasury says the firm set up, the earliest exact date in OFAC’s entries is Corfu’s establishment on April 21, 2022; OFAC gives only the year 2022 for Skyros. Treasury does not give a start date, saying the firm “has for years leveraged its legal practice to register shipping companies that own shadow fleet vessels.” The State Department also says, “For years, the firm has set up shell companies to hide the true owners of vessels carrying Iranian oil, petrochemicals, and steel.” The firm itself was established in 2006, twenty years ago, and its website advertised “Ship Registration and Finance” as a practice area. For Emamjomeh’s network, Treasury says the activity goes back further: “For more than a decade,” he and his son “have owned and operated an LPG sales, transportation, and delivery network.”

Key: OFAC = OFAC Sanctions List Search entry; LL = Lloyd’s List; LP = La Prensa; Dnews = Dnews (Greece); GL GG = OFAC General License GG; RDAP = domain registration record; UANI = United Against Nuclear Iran.

Each of the three companies Treasury says the firm set up was sanctioned over a ship it owned before the firm itself was. In November 2024, Treasury said, “The RAMONA I is owned by Panama-based Elias Shipping & Trading Group SA.” In November 2025, it said the Panama-flagged GAS ATHENA, which OFAC links to Corfu, had “transported hundreds of thousands of barrels of LPG to customers in South Asia, including Pakistan and Bangladesh.” The same release named KAISA I, a carrier that Lloyd’s List reported in 2023 was managed by the same company that managed the fleet. In April 2026, Treasury said, “The Panama-flagged oil tanker HH GLORY (IMO 9534614), owned by Panama-based Skyros Maritime and Trading S.A., has transported hundreds of thousands of barrels of Iranian LPG since 2025.” An IMO number is the permanent seven-digit number assigned to a ship’s hull; it stays the same when the ship changes name or flag.

Which Earlier Iran Sanctions Already Touched the Firm’s Companies?

Before Treasury named the firm, OFAC had already sanctioned at least seven companies tied to it and the seven ships they owned. Treasury itself says the firm set up three of them: Elias, Corfu, and Skyros. News outlets in Greece and Panama reported that the firm was resident agent for four more: Thasos, Serifos, and Tilos, which OFAC designated alongside Corfu in November 2025, and Aquila, designated in May 2026. The earliest, Elias, was sanctioned on November 14, 2024, in an action against a Syrian fuel trader that OFAC links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), the Guard’s foreign operations arm.

Elias is the clearest case. Its OFAC entry lists it at “21st Floor, Global Plaza Building, Calle 50,” the same floor OFAC gives for the firm, and marks it “Linked To: AL-QATIRJI COMPANY.” OFAC first designated that company in 2018; in the November 2024 action, Treasury said, “As of 2024, the Al-Qatirji Company has become one of the IRGC-QF’s main financial channels.” Elias was designated under counterterrorism authorities, not the Iran petroleum order used for the firm.

The four companies designated on November 20, 2025, were a set. Treasury said their ships “have all been associated with the LPG tanker fleet of Iranian LPG magnate Seyed Asadoollah Emamjomeh.” Thirteen days later, on December 3, 2025, the Greek news site Dnews reported that the firm was listed as resident agent, the local lawyer or law firm every Panamanian corporation must name, for all four companies, and that two of the people Treasury would designate in October 2026 sat on their boards: “με τον Pedro Ortega Jones να καταγράφεται ως πρόεδρος και τον Ioanis Karnakis Kosmas ως ταμία.” (“with Pedro Ortega Jones recorded as president and Ioanis Karnakis Kosmas as treasurer.” Translation.) Treasury has not said whether the firm formed Thasos, Serifos, or Tilos; Dnews’s account rests on corporate records it did not publish.

Key: OFAC = OFAC Sanctions List Search entry; LL = Lloyd’s List, November 17, 2023; LP = La Prensa, May 21, 2026; Dnews = Dnews, December 3, 2025; SDGT = Specially Designated Global Terrorist, a counterterrorism designation under Executive Order 13224.

Counted strictly, three companies and three ships rest on Treasury’s word, and four more companies and four ships rest on news reports. OFAC lists three other sanctioned companies on the firm’s 21st floor, Brilliance, Poros, and Veinto, but no source ties them to the firm, and they are not counted. Nor are the five carriers that Lloyd’s List named in 2023 and OFAC later blocked under other owners. Treasury’s phrase “among others” means the true number may be higher.

Brilliance stands out among the companies on that floor because it was designated under Hizballah sanctions, not Iran’s petroleum order. In that February 2026 action, Treasury said “the Iranian fertilizer cargo was loaded onto the Panama-flagged BRILLIANCE,” a ship that “was part of the fleet managed by U.S.-designated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force and Hizballah-affiliated Syrian businessman Abdul Jalil Mallah.” A shared office floor in a building that houses many companies does not show that the firm served Brilliance.

OFAC’s own data show one more pattern. Five Panama companies in this record, Corfu, Ithaki, Serifos, Skiathos, and Skyros, carry Panama registry numbers within sixty-one of one another, from 155721548 to 155721609, and Thasos and Tilos carry consecutive numbers, 155723644 and 155723645. OFAC lists Corfu and Serifos as established on the same day, April 21, 2022, and Thasos and Tilos on June 9, 2022. OFAC does not say who registered Ithaki or Skiathos, which owned the sanctioned carriers DANUTA I and SONA, and OctoProbe does not count them.

OctoProbe found no British, European Union, or United Nations sanctions on these companies. OpenSanctions, which compiles sanctions lists from many governments, including those three, showed no such listing for the firm, Corfu, Skyros, Elias, Thasos, and Aquila when OctoProbe checked on October 21, 2026.

Where Did the Allegations Against the Firm Come From?

The connection first surfaced in reporting, not in a leak database or a court case. Lloyd’s List named the firm on November 17, 2023, in an investigation built partly on documents leaked from a sanctioned Iranian petrochemical broker. A Greek news site added names and roles in December 2025, a Panamanian newspaper added a company in May 2026, and Treasury made the first government accusation on October 21, 2026. The firm does not appear in the Panama Papers or any other set in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Offshore Leaks data.

Lloyd’s List reporter Tomer Raanan’s 2023 investigation said it drew on “sale and purchase documents, public access databases and a cache of leaked documents posted on the WikiIran website.” Those leaked documents came from “officials in the sanctioned Iranian petrochemical broker Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Commercial Company (PGPICC),” the newspaper said. It also used ship-tracking data from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), an advocacy group: “Combining Lloyd’s List Intelligence data, satellite imagery, and data from UANI,” it identified at least ten ships in the fleet loading Iranian cargo with their tracking signals off. The firm’s role, the paper said, came from public records showing it served as the companies’ corporate agents. On October 21, 2026, Lloyd’s List wrote that the firm “featured prominently in a 2023 Lloyd’s List investigation that exposed the opaque corporate structures behind a fleet of gas carriers shipping Iranian LPG.”

Until October 2026, government releases named the firm’s companies but not the firm. Treasury’s announcements designating Elias in 2024, Corfu and its sister companies in 2025, and Skyros in April 2026 do not mention Karnakis and Karnakis. The next public account found to name it is the December 3, 2025, Dnews column by Thanasis Koukakis, which said the firm “εμφανίζεται ως «resident agent» των Thasos Maritime and Trading, Serifos Maritime and Trading, Tilos Maritime and Trading και Corfu Maritime and Trading.” (“appears as ‘resident agent’ of Thasos Maritime and Trading, Serifos Maritime and Trading, Tilos Maritime and Trading, and Corfu Maritime and Trading.” Translation.) La Prensa’s May 21, 2026, report on Aquila followed. Treasury’s October 21, 2026, release was the first government statement found that names the firm.

Editor’s note: OctoProbe found no record of the firm, its people, Roxette, or the companies and ships in this article in the Panama Papers or the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ other Offshore Leaks data, and no U.S. court case naming the firm. It found no earlier allegations of organized crime, money laundering, or smuggling that could be tied to these people.

What Did Treasury Say When It Sanctioned the Firm?

Treasury’s October 21, 2026, release says the firm “previously set up” Skyros, Corfu, and Elias, “among others, all of which OFAC has previously designated for their ownership of vessels active in the trade of Iranian petroleum and petroleum products.” It says the firm “played a particularly critical role in establishing the corporate architecture for the shipping empire of Iranian liquified petroleum gas (LPG) magnate Seyed Asadoollah Emamjomeh” and “served as the corporate agent for many of Emamjomeh’s firms.” It calls Roxette the company “for which Karnakis and Karnakis serves as the corporate agent,” and says three Roxette ships, ANEMOS, GLORIS, and PRIDE, “have shipped various cargos of Iranian-origin goods within the past year, including petrochemicals and steel products.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “Whether you are conducting illegal oil transfers at sea or sitting in the corner office of a law firm, if you are supporting the Iranian regime, we will find you and sanction you.” OFAC designated the firm “for operating in the petroleum and petrochemical sectors of the Iranian economy.”

Treasury says the firm “was founded, and is currently owned, by dual Panamanian-Greek nationals Sofianos Karnakis Kosmas and Konstantinos Karnakis Kosmas,” with Ioanis Karnakis Kosmas and Pedro Ortega Jones “serving as employees of the law firm.” It adds that “Karnakis and Karnakis employees, including Panamanian national Roberto Ortega Jones, act as directors and officers of many of the companies they register in order to obfuscate the true beneficial owners of these companies.” A beneficial owner is the person who ultimately controls or profits from a company, as opposed to the names on its filings. All five were designated “for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Karnakis and Karnakis.” Treasury calls Ioanis Karnakis Kosmas a Panamanian-Greek national; his OFAC entry lists only Panama.

Key: OFAC = OFAC Sanctions List Search entry.

How Openly Did the Firm Operate?

In public. The firm ran a bilingual website naming its lawyers, their direct email addresses, and its offices on Global Plaza’s 21st floor, and the site was still serving pages on October 21, 2026, the day of the designation. Archived copies show it online through mid-2025, more than a year and a half after Lloyd’s List named the firm, and it was still online five months after OFAC designated Aquila, a company on the firm’s floor that La Prensa reported it served. According to Dnews, two of its lawyers were listed under their own names as officers of four companies OFAC sanctioned in November 2025.

The website pitched speed. Its practice page, as preserved in June 2025, says of Panama’s ship registry, “Important transactions can be completed in one day, without requiring the physical presence of the principals in Panama.” It adds, “KARNAKIS & KARNAKIS plays an active role in this efficient global network, being involved in the registration of ships, as well as in the preparation and drafting of all contracts involved in the sale, operation and management of the ship.” The same site offered immigration visas, trademark registration, and international adoptions.

The Internet Archive holds eight captures of the Spanish-language lawyers page, Los Hechos (“The Facts”), from November 2022 to June 2025, and eleven of the English home page through July 2025, spanning the period after the Lloyd’s List report. The June 15, 2025, capture lists Sofianos, Konstantino, Ioanis, and Georgios Karnakis and Pedro Ortega Jones, and the English “The Facts” page shows the same five lawyers. A third-party web fetch on October 21, 2026, returned the live Spanish page with the same staff and the firm’s Global Plaza address, “Edificio Global Plaza, Calle 50, Piso 21” (Global Plaza Building, 50th Street, 21st floor).

Ortega Jones is one of the two employees whom Dnews placed on the boards of the four companies OFAC designated in November 2025. The firm kept his profile, with a direct firm email address, on its site after those designations; OFAC designated him on October 21, 2026, “for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Karnakis and Karnakis.”

The scale was visible too. Lloyd’s List reported that all but five of at least fourteen gas carriers in the 2023 fleet had been sold to companies registered to an associate of the firm, which means at least nine ships. It said ships in the fleet were “involved in at least seven seafarer abandonment cases in 2022, largely related to unpaid wages,” according to the International Labour Organization, with new cases in 2023, and that “Most of the complaints occurred after the vessels were sold to companies registered to the Panamanian lawyer.” Its ships kept sailing after designation: HH GLORY, GAS ATHENA, and RAMONA I took new flags or names, and Roxette’s seven ships were still broadcasting their OFAC-listed identifiers the evening of the designation, as described below.

What Does the Network’s Infrastructure Look Like Now?

The Ships

Ships broadcast their identity and position through the Automatic Identification System (AIS), a radio transponder signal. Each signal carries a nine-digit Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI), whose first three digits indicate the flag country, along with a radio call sign. A ship that changes its flag gets a new MMSI and call sign but keeps its IMO number.

HH GLORY still uses its name, but its AIS signal carries MMSI 350617000, call sign H7XQ1, and a Nicaragua flag, according to MyShipTracking and VesselFinder. Its OFAC entry lists MMSI 352255000, call sign 3FCJ9, and Panama. Its last public fix, on October 12, 2026, put it in the Gulf of Oman. GAS ATHENA now broadcasts as SEAGATE, with MMSI 301000413, call sign ZGN2416, and an Anguilla flag; its OFAC entry lists 374041000, 3FNK5, and Panama. Its last public fix, on October 16, 2026, was a position rounded to whole degrees near the Gulf of Oman. RAMONA I broadcasts the name DAHAB with the MMSI and call sign OFAC lists and a Guyana flag. Guyana’s Maritime Administration said in January 2025 that “it operates a closed Ships’ Registry and does not offer a flag of convenience.” That statement did not name this ship.

Roxette’s seven ships still broadcast the identifiers and Panama flags in their OFAC entries. Their last public fixes, checked on the evening of October 21, 2026, ranged from Djibouti to the Taiwan Strait; three were more than forty-eight hours old. The Nicaraguan, Anguillan, and Guyanese registries were not checked, so the flags above are what the transponders report, not confirmed registrations.

Key: VF = VesselFinder; MST = MyShipTracking; OFAC = OFAC Sanctions List Search entry.

The Companies and Addresses

All four companies Treasury names in connection with the firm, Skyros, Corfu, Elias, and Roxette, are on OFAC’s list. OFAC lists Roxette at 90 Iroon Politechneiou Avenue in Piraeus, and the firm at the Global Plaza Building, Calle 50, 21st floor, in Panama City, and at 158 II Merachias and Alkiviadou in Piraeus. Of the other sanctioned companies OFAC lists on that floor, described above, only one has a reported tie to the firm: La Prensa reported that Aquila’s resident agent is “the Panamanian firm Karnakis and Karnakis, specifically the lawyer Sofiano Karnakis Kosmas.” (Translation.) OFAC’s own entry for Aquila does not mention the firm.

Note: La Prensa’s original Spanish reads, “El agente residente de esta sociedad es la firma panameña Karnakis & Karnakis —específicamente, el abogado Sofiano Karnakis Kosmas—, quien comparte domicilio con la sociedad ya descrita.”

The Online Footprint

The firm’s website, as preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine in February 2025, says “KARNAKIS & KARNAKIS offers legal services in the Republic of Panama and in Greece, to both national and international clients, offering legal counsel in all areas of law, highly emphasized in maritime and commercial law.” It says, “The main offices of the firm are located in Global Plaza, 50th Street, 21st floor, Panama, Republic of Panama; furthermore, the firm has an office in Piraeus, Greece.” Its home page lists five practice areas, including ship registration and finance, under which it says, “Panama’s Ship Registry has positioned itself for most of the last decade as the world’s leading Merchant Marine.”

The site’s lawyers page lists four of the five designated people. It labels Sofianos Karnakis “Founder,” and lists a master’s degree in maritime law from the London School of Economics; it lists Konstantino Karnakis’s master’s degree in international maritime law from the University of Wales, Swansea, and gives both men’s practice areas as “Shipping Law, Ship Finance, Corporate Law and Commercial Law.” It also lists Ioanis Karnakis, Pedro Ortega Jones, and Georgios Karnakis, a doctor with a law degree who is not on OFAC’s list. Roberto Ortega Jones does not appear. The domain remains registered through 2032, with GoDaddy name servers and Microsoft 365 email.

OctoProbe ran the firm’s published email addresses and office phone numbers through commercial breach-data search, which indexes records exposed in past data leaks. Three records from a leaked contact-app dataset pair the firm’s identifiers with its founders. Two list the name Sofianos Karnakis, one with his firm email address and one with the firm’s Piraeus landline and the company name “Karnakis & Karnakis.” The third lists the Greek-script name Κωνσταντίνος Καρνάκης with the firm email address the website gives for Konstantino Karnakis. Breach records under the name Sofianos Karnakis also include two personal email addresses that do not appear in OFAC’s entries, a Gmail address, so*******@gmail.com, and a Greek otenet.gr address, so****@otenet.gr, which OctoProbe has partially masked. The search also tied a Panamanian mobile number, +507 6***-**25, to Georgios Karnakis, but breach data lists the same number under another person’s name, so it could not be independently confirmed as his.

Editor’s note: Greek names are written in Latin letters in more than one way, so “Konstantino” on the firm’s website, “Konstantinos” in OFAC’s entry, and “Κωνσταντίνος Καρνάκης” in Greek script can refer to one person or to different people. This article ties records to the designated people by email addresses, phone numbers, and the firm’s name, not by spelling. GoDaddy and Microsoft 365 serve millions of domains, so neither links the firm to anyone.

What Remains Unknown?

Panama’s public registry, which lists each company’s resident agent and directors, was not reachable for this report, so the firm’s role in specific companies rests on the accounts of Treasury, Lloyd’s List, and La Prensa. Treasury’s phrase “among others” leaves open which other companies the firm formed. Dnews did not publish the corporate records behind its account of Thasos, Serifos, and Tilos, and those records could not be independently obtained. The flag changes come from AIS signals, not registry records.

What Has Panama Done About Sanctioned Ships on Its Registry?

In March 2025, the Panama Maritime Authority said it had “officially deregistered 107 Panamanian-flagged vessels listed under international sanctions, with an additional 18 currently undergoing the deregistration process.” It said, “This action is in accordance with Executive Decree No. 512 of October 18, 2024, which grants the PMA the authority to unilaterally cancel the registration of vessels, as well as registered individuals and shipowners, that appear on international sanctions lists.” In August 2025, it added an age limit: “From now on, the registration of oil tankers and bulk carriers older than fifteen (15) years will no longer be accepted.” OFAC’s entries still list HH GLORY and GAS ATHENA as Panama-flagged; their transponders now report Nicaragua and Anguilla.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was the firm first publicly tied to Iranian shipping?

The earliest public report found is a Lloyd’s List investigation published November 17, 2023, which said ships carrying Iranian gas had been sold to shell companies registered to an associate of the firm. Lloyd’s List said it was not suggesting the companies broke sanctions.

What is Karnakis and Karnakis?

A law firm with offices in Panama City and Piraeus, Greece, founded in 2006, that Treasury sanctioned on October 21, 2026, saying it registered companies whose ships carried Iranian petroleum, petrochemicals, and steel.

Who was sanctioned with the firm?

Its founders and co-owners, Sofianos and Konstantinos Karnakis Kosmas, and employees Ioanis Karnakis Kosmas, Pedro Ortega Jones, and Roberto Ortega Jones, along with Roxette Maritime Shipping and Trading S.A. and the seven cargo ships it manages.

Which companies does Treasury say the firm set up?

Skyros Maritime and Trading S.A., Corfu Maritime and Trading S.A., and Elias Shipping and Trading Group S.A., “among others.” Treasury says all three were sanctioned earlier for owning ships active in the trade of Iranian petroleum and petroleum products.

How many companies tied to the firm were sanctioned before it was?

At least seven, along with seven ships. Treasury says the firm set up three of them, Elias, Corfu, and Skyros, sanctioned from November 2024 to April 2026. News reports say it was resident agent for four more: Thasos, Serifos, and Tilos, sanctioned in November 2025, and Aquila, sanctioned in May 2026.

Was the firm in the Panama Papers?

No. OctoProbe found no record of the firm, its designated people, or its companies in the Panama Papers or the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ other Offshore Leaks data. The connection first surfaced in a November 2023 Lloyd’s List investigation that drew on public records and documents leaked from a sanctioned Iranian petrochemical broker.

Has the firm faced other criminal allegations?

OctoProbe found no earlier allegation of organized crime, money laundering, or smuggling that could be tied to the firm or its people.

Can companies still deal with the firm?

Only to wind down existing dealings. OFAC’s General License GG authorizes transactions ordinarily incident and necessary to that wind-down through 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on November 20, 2026.

What happened to the ships of the firm’s earlier companies?

HH GLORY and GAS ATHENA, which OFAC lists as Panama-flagged, now broadcast Nicaragua and Anguilla flags with new MMSI numbers; GAS ATHENA uses the name SEAGATE. RAMONA I broadcasts the name DAHAB.

Colin Aamot is an investigative journalist and OSINT domain expert specializing in FOIA and public records. A technologist, U.S. Army veteran, and former Capitol Hill staffer, he has held director roles across the private and public sectors.Full bio