Ahead of this week’s meeting of its legal committee, the secretariat at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has warned about two shipping registries it deems are fraudulent.
Flags being administered allegedly on behalf of Guyana and Eswatini have come in for criticism.
Despite the government of Guyana warning the IMO about the operation of what it claimed is a fraudulent registry under the domain name www.imsag.org, the IMO has warned in a circular that the registry continues operating notwithstanding the termination of the contract between the Maritime Administration Department of Guyana and the Aryavart Corporation, its subsidiaries Nautilus Register and the International Maritime Safety Agency for Guyana (IMSAG), including issuing of fraudulent certificates of registration and authorising recognised organisations.
Having struggled with Guyana, India’s Aryavart Corporation then created the Eswatini Maritime Affairs and International Ship Registry as a private company in Singapore late last year, registering ships to the landlocked southern African kingdom formerly known as Swaziland. The IMO has since listed a number of vessels that paid to flag with the African nation as ‘False Eswatini’.
The Indian backers of the Eswatini flag have also been in landlocked Laos recently, where they are in discussions to create another shipping registry.
Like Eswanti, Laos is not a member state of the IMO. Other landlocked shipping registries to have made headlines over the years include Mongolia, Bolivia and the 2021 creation of the San Marino Ship Register.