IFC - Information Fusion Centre - MARSEC Weekly Report

- PIRACY/ROBBERY

Event reported last week:

1 sea robbery was reported last week on a Bulk Carrier underway in Singapore strait, one of the ship crew was injured;

Total events : 40 incidents since the beginning of the year compared to 22 at the same date in 2019);

Dangerous areas identified:

Singapore Strait: 21 incidents in 2017, 20 in 2018, 45 in 2019, 15 in 2020 (only 5 events in Singapore strait between January 1st and May 8th in 2019).
Sulu Sea:
- Last incident occurred on 16/01/2020 with a kidnapping at sea against five fishermen on a fishing vessel. Request of a 580 000 $ of ransom by ASG still in progress;
- Attached the « PHILIPPINE INTEL WARNING » regarding the ASG PLAN KIDNAPPING: ASG led by Salip Murah planned to kidnap foreigners in Sabah on any opportune time targeting. The plan was hatched during an informal meeting led by Salip Murah in Indanan, Sulu in the afternoon of 13 May together with his followers. As planned, the kidnapping will be led by Hadji Wahab, a native of Calingalan Caluang and a certain Maron Said. The two will board unidentified watercraft owned by Maron Said from undisclosed area in Sulu to still unidentified area in Tawi-Tawi before will head to Sabah.

Following anchorage areas:
- Indonesia: Batam, Begawan, Belawan, Dumai, Panjang, Sandakan, Samarinda and Taboneo;
- Philippines: Manille, Batangas, General Santos Harbour;
- Bangladesh: Chittagong;
- Vietnam: Vung Tau, Ho Chi Minh;
- India: Kakinada, Alang.

- MI

08/05 : In a manoeuvre that the prosecution likened to cutting across lanes in an expressway, the chief officer of a tugboat towed a poorly lit barge across a busy sea channel when he did not have the right of way, causing a collision with a tanker that drowned two men;
11/05: Iran Flagged container ship and Indonesia Flagged bulk carrier respectively went grounded off Batu Berhenti Beacon, Singapore Strait. The two vessels grounded in sequence. POCC was warning container ship on collision avoidance but she ended up grounding. Shortly after, the bulk carrier grounded even after POCC gave navigation warning on MMS. Bulk carrier was refloated a few hours later, taken to nearby Batam Anchorage, anchored. The container ship remained aground, and judging from latest available photos, it seems like she broke in two in midship area, hull having vertical cracks both portside and stb, throughout freeboard and below waterline;
11/05: The owner of a Philippine cargo ship has paid $45,000 in compensation to a Vietnamese fisherman for ramming and sinking his boat on May 1. The owner of the fishing boat, said last Saturday he had received the money from the owner of the freighter White To Mony.

- CONTRABAND

12/05 : The Singapore authorities have seized more than 11,180 cartons and 200 sticks of contraband cigarettes that were hidden in a container shipment;
13/05: Republic of Korea (ROK) Customs have caught a group of people who smuggled Korean cigarettes, legitimately exported to Southeast Asia, into ROK by disguising them as transshipment cargo.

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