FRAUD in shipping is not new. Ships with fake identities are not new. Even fake flags are hardly an innovation.

If there is a way to circumvent the rules, shipping has generally found it already. It is the velocity that is new. Sanctions have altered the regulatory ecosystem sufficiently to force a mutation.

The ensuing evolution of fraudulent registries, schizophrenic ships with multiple, fluid identities has been visible for some time now. It’s just that the evolutionary process is accelerating.

The system for keeping track of legitimate changes in flag and ship identity was already broken, it’s just that nobody noticed or cared when those changes happened once every few years.

We now see ships moving through three entirely fictional flags in under two weeks and nothing is set up to deal with that problem.

The International Maritime Organization’s own data is riddled with fraudulent operations masquerading as real governments. But given that many of the real governments’ data is missing or out of date, it’s hard to tell the difference. And once they do, it’s too late.

The system is broken, and the fraudulent registries have simply capitalised on that gap in the system and the pace of response.

Fixing that system, however, requires more than just a quick data review from the IMO.

This is not sophisticated fraud. Many of the fake websites that Lloyd’s List has spent the past few weeks uncovering are built off basic blogging technology and that we were able to access their systems to reveal hundreds of fraudulent documents says all you need to know about their approach to cyber security.

This is not about investing billions to upgrade the creaking digital infrastructure of government IT — this is a political problem not a technical one.

Should the collective will of the 176 member states’ governments wish to address the broken system that cannot distinguish between real and imagined government entities, they could.

The fact that they have been arguing the toss over how they might start a review of how they might eventually go about it at some point down the line, explains why they are struggling.

Shipping is infinitely adaptable, but there is a difference between adaptability and agility.

The sooner that IMO member states accept that the current system is broken, the quicker they can set about building a new ecosystem that ensures government and flag state accountability at the heart of it.

That change cannot come too soon.

Richard Meade
Editor-in-chief, Lloyd’s List

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