Category: Shipping

Operational drive on the northern flank

"Mecklenburg-Vorpommern" left Wilhelmshaven for a mission without the usual fuss. Although family members and the music corps were present, there have been no official press invitations for the time being since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis. Parliamentary State Secretary Siemtje Möller and her Slovakian counterpart Marian Majer were present at the farewell ceremony, as a Slovakian team is also on board. "Following an interim overhaul, the ship and crew have now completed a good nine months of operational training with a clear focus on national and alliance defence tasks," said frigate captain Hendrik Wißler, according to a statement from the navy. The task now is to utilise these capabilities as part of the rapid...

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Yachts hidden by straw man

The interest and the gloating continue unabated. It has now been revealed that a "front man" may have hidden Russian yachts worth a billion dollars. In the race to seize the assets of sanctioned Russian billionaires, the US authorities are claiming that a Russian tycoon acted as a "front man" for two yachts worth billions. According to reports, this also includes the 700 million dollar superyacht "Scheherazade", which is associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the South Pacific island of Fiji, the USA is now also trying to seize the 325-million-dollar yacht "Amadea". Court documents there are said to be a...

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Oligarch yacht switches off

A $150 million superyacht owned by Leonid Mikhelson, Russia's second richest citizen whose gas company is the target of US sanctions, has stopped transmitting its location after it was last seen heading for the Bahamas. The 85-metre-long "Pacific", which has room for two helicopters, was last spotted at almost full speed in the Caribbean shortly after 9 pm local time on 8 May before, according to ship data compiled by Bloomberg, it stopped transmitting automatically and became invisible on the net, effectively "going down". This led to the rumour in some media that she had really sunk. Why would she? These are also unconfirmed reports. Should the...

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Indian Ocean Commission supports African island states in the fight against maritime crime

The "Baba Ali", a Seychellois fishing vessel, was transiting through the Seychelles Economic Zone when the authorities intercepted it with a drug cargo in May 2021. As part of an operation coordinated by the Seychelles Air Force, the Seychelles Coast Guard and the National Information Exchange and Coordination Centre, the authorities boarded the vessel and inspected it. The finds - heroin and hashish worth around 1.2 million dollars - show the extent of the threat posed by the regional drug trade. The seizure of the drugs and the arrest of three other Seychellois nationals and four Indonesian nationals show that the efforts of the Coordination Centre are...

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Significant decline in piracy in West Africa

.... but the Gulf of Guinea remains a global hotspot Piracy off the West African coast has fallen dramatically since 2021 - by almost half. But the region remains the world's piracy hotspot, according to Dryad Global. In its 2021/22 annual report, the maritime risk company notes that "the drastic decline in piracy across West Africa in 2021 resulted in a total decrease in piracy and maritime crime incidents of 56 % compared to 2020. The number of actual and attempted attacks, as well as ship strikes, decreased by more than 85 %...

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