Tag: maritime crime

Mozambican assembly passed a bill to activate the maritime courts nationwide as part of the country's effort to fight a growing trend of offshore crimes including piracy, illegal fishing, and terrorism.

New research prepared for Oceana’s Transparent Oceans Initiative has used global data to analyze the links between illegal fishing and other maritime crimes, like forced labor, drug trafficking, and money laundering, finding fishing-related crime is highly concentrated and sanctions are often inadequate.

Mr. Michael Howlett, Director, International Maritime Bureau, ICC Commercial Crime Services, outlines the key challenges with regards to maritime piracy, highlighting that crew kidnapping in GoG remains the biggest area of concern. Furthermore, considering that available resources to deal with maritime crime are limited, incident reporting remains critical.

SafeSeas, Stable Seas and ONE EARTH FUTURE issued a report focusing on the environmental crimes within the maritime context.

British security intelligence firm Dryad Global issued its annual report for 2020, providing an overview of piracy trends worldwide. The report reveals that robberies are the most prevalent incident type in West Africa, but kidnapping incidents remain unacceptably high in Gulf of Guinea. Meanwhile, incidents in Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia remain low. 

Last week, 76 port and maritime supply chain representatives from 12 countries got together in a Port Stakeholders’ Workshop to agree on measures regarding wildlife trafficking through Mombasa Port, the largest port in Africa and key exit point of African wildlife trafficking, highlighting the urgent need for action against illegal wildlife trade.

Agents from US Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations facilitated the seizure of over three tons of drugs in late March 2019. Namely, a Navy ship discovered 6,100 pounds of marijuana destined for the US, on board a panga-style vessel off the coast of Central America. The US Coast Guard and Navy teams seized the narcotics and sank the vessel as a danger to navigation.

Ministers from the ten Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries issued a joint statement which describes illegal trade of wildlife as “among the greatest challenges of ASEAN as the economic, social and environmental repercussions are severe and widespread in scale.”

With the proliferation of instruments and institutions over the last decade, the time has come to focus on deconflicting and coordinating the various portions of the maritime security architecture around Africa, said Dr. Ian Ralby, the Africa Center’s faculty lead for maritime law and security.

The ‘SuperFerry 14’, the deadliest terrorist attack in Philippines, killed a total of 116 people. The blast occurred on 27 February 2004 in Manila Bay, claiming the title of the world's deadliest terrorist attack at sea until today.