Alleged links to Iran lead to liquidation for SeaLead Shipping

Image: SeaLead By Alison Koo 5 August 2026 Singapore-based SeaLead Shipping has ceased trading after US sanctions impeded operations. The liner operator filed for voluntary liquidation in late July, and on Monday, Cosimo Borrelli of Admiralty Asia Partners was appointed the liquidator. Last Friday, Sealead declared it was solvent. With net assets of $37.4m, its directors affirmed that Sealead could repay all its debts within a year of the start of winding-up proceedings. Sealead’s assets comprise $6.9m of cash, $19.9m of ships and $26.2m of containers. The company has no long-term debt and its current liabilities comprise $15m of sums due to suppliers and $500,000 of salaries due to staff. At its peak, SeaLead specialised in liner services to and around the Persian Gulf, and even dabbled in transpacific routes as container freight rates reached historical highs during Covid and the Red Sea crisis. SeaLead shareholders are: Preetha Sunil Kumar (holding 20%); Cayman Islands-incorporated Access Capital Funds (15%); Meteor Capital (33%); and Hummingbird Capital (32%). SeaLead’s downfall began last July, when the US Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned 16 of its chartered vessels, claiming they were linked to a “vast shipping empire” controlled by Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard navy and the son of Ali Shamkhani, a top political adviser to Iran’s supreme leader. All vessels were technically managed by Draco Buren Shipping, a Singapore-registered company, also sanctioned due to alleged links to Mr Shamkhani. The outbreak of the US/Israel-Iran conflict on 28 February further hampered SeaLead operations, stranding vessels on Far East-Persian Gulf services. On 6 March, the US Department of Justice seized $2.4m of SeaLead’s funds as “civil forfeiture”, accusing the shipping line of providing transportation services to interests controlled by Mr Shamkhani. The DoJ alleged the $2.4m was part of more than $15.3m used to fund an illicit Iranian oil distribution network. By then, SeaLead’s operated capacity had dwindled to 14 ships, 62,521 teu, from a peak of 208,000 teu in May 2025. The company retrenched several employees and shut some foreign offices – once the 13 th -largest shipping line, SeaLead tumbled out of Alphaliner’s top 100. The final nail in the coffin appears to have been hammered in last month, when OFAC sanctioned SeaLead itself, as well as its subsidiaries in India, the Marshall Islands, and the UAE. Several other Shamkhani-linked companies were also named, including Aare Lines, Hansa Shipping, Lubeck Shipping, Volta Shipping, and WeFreight Shipping. The Loadstar understands that until the end of last month, SeaLead’s Malaysian subsidiary, SeaLead Shipping Malaysia, was still trying to book cargo as an NVOCC, but that shipping lines had become wary of taking its business.