Flag states rush to flush out fake registries in buildup to IMO meeting
MORE states are calling out fraudsters illicitly operating flag registries without authorisation from their national governments in advance of the International Maritime Organization’s legal sub-committee meeting next month, where proposals for new flag state guidelines will heard and international scrutiny applied.
Over a span of a week-and-a-half in February, Madagascar, Zimbabwe and the Netherlands have all written to the IMO to flag fraudulent registries operating without their consent.
Ahead of the subcommittee’s meeting, the IMO Secretariat on Thursday released a detailed list of communications from 14 countries regarding fraudulent registrations carried out on their behalf. The document also provided the latest numbers on falsely flagged vessels of all types, which has topped 520, according to the IMO’s GISIS platform.
More than 350 of the falsely flagged ships are not classed by any classification society, the IMO said.
Meanwhile, Cameroon, which has ascended to the top of shadow fleet sanctuaries by dwt in recent months, has pledged a purge amid rising diplomatic pressure from the European Union.
Landlocked Botswana, one of the recently erected fake flags, confirmed to the IMO last month that that it does not operate a register of ships, essentially confirming widespread suspicion that an operation purporting to register ships on its behalf was doing so fraudulently.
According to Lloyd’s List Intelligence Automatic Identification System data, there were 15 oil and gas carriers in February that purported to be flagged with Botswana, all part of the so-called shadow fleet*.
That was a decline from 22 oil and gas tankers in January, with five of the departees proceeding to fraudulently broadcast that they were registered with Madagascar via their Maritime Mobile Service Identity number.
The MMSI number is transmitted via AIS data and is a unique nine-digit number where the first three digits denote the flag state.
Between them, the false registries identified by Netherlands (purporting to operate on behalf of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten), Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Guinea and Mali — all of which have communicated with the IMO since January regarding fraudulent registrations — account for over 14.5m dwt of shadow fleet oil and gas carriers**.
Only Curaçao and the Netherlands have an international registry, the Dutch government clarified, and Curaçao currently has a fleet of fewer than 20 vessels, none of which is a tanker.
There are over 500 falsely flagged ships, including more than 300 shadow fleet oil and gas carriers, according to the IMO’s GISIS database and Lloyd’s List analysis of the shadow fleet.
Falsely flagged ships, including vessels flying flags of legitimate registries without their consent, and those that were flying flags of entirely fraudulent registries, accounted for over 31m dwt of shadow fleet tanker tonnage, more than any single registry combined.
The IMO’s circular also relayed communication from the Kingdom of Tonga, which clarified that it had not operated an international registry for over 20 years. However, at least 12 shadow fleet vessels have broadcast AIS data they were flagged by the Pacific island kingdom since January.
Gambia, which in November purged 71 tankers from its registry and informed the IMO that fraudulent certification purporting to be issued by its registry were being circulated, still had 19 vessels using its MMSI prefix in January and February, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence data.
The sheer speed at which tankers are switching between flags through the use of fake certificates and MMSI numbers is making tracking these moves increasingly challenging.
The pace of reflagging and flag hopping has accelerated dramatically in recent years as sanctions pressure from the US, UK and EU ramped up.
* Lloyd’s List defines a tanker as being part of the Shadow Fleet if it engages in one or more deceptive shipping practices indicating that it is involved in the facilitation of sanctioned oil cargoes from Iran, Russia or Venezuela. Or it is sanctioned for participation in sanctioned oil trades or is sanctioned for links to a company that is sanctioned for facilitating the export of sanctioned oil. Or it participates in a cargo delivery where at some point over the course of the delivery one party in the chain engages in one or more deceptive shipping practices. Seasearcher subscribers can activate the Shadow Fleet list by clicking the link above.
** Of the roughly 1,570 oil and gas carriers assessed to be part of the shadow fleet, AIS data for over 100 was not available for January and February. Only vessels that broadcast AIS in January and February were considered for the purpose of this flag analysis.
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