Axios reporter Barak Ravid, citing three U.S. officials, claims that 40 tanker ships transited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday night and carried nearly 16 million barrels of oil.

The open-source tracking data contradicts this claim.

Kpler showed only seven vessels that could be observed on Wednesday, and critics pointed to “zero tanker transits from west to east and zero oil-barrel departures on Friday” in the satellite-enhanced data.

16 million barrels would require several fully loaded supertankers, making it difficult to coordinate that with the recent observable traffic, which has been in single-digit figures.

The United States says the protected convoys transit at night with the tracking systems turned off.

The real, documented dark transits exist, but no independent source has confirmed the specific volumes claimed.