Maritime Executive: Vanuatu Alerts of False Flag Impostor and Starts Investigation

The Government of the Republic of Vanuatu, a small island nation in the South Pacific, has become the third regional country in a month to warn of a false flag operation purporting to represent its registry. It is the latest move in the ongoing effort by small nations to stop the illegal representation of their registry, mostly by sanctioned shadow fleet tankers, which the governments recognize are hurting the reputations of their countries.

Vanuatu’s Maritime Administrator and the operator of the Vanuatu International Shipping Registry are accusing unknown international operators of establishing an “unauthorized and fraudulent website,” which they report copied the content and branding of the official registry website. They emphasized that the Vanuatu International Shipping Registry does not authorize any third-party or alternative website, and any documents from such a site are invalid and may constitute fraud.

The Maritime Administrator said that after it confirmed the existence of the website, it was able to get the domain registrar and hosting providers to close the site in a matter of hours. They are investigating but so far could only say that “the website had been developed and/or hosted by a foreign service provider.”

After the Prime Minister’s Office was informed of the fraud, it issued a directive to open an investigation into the site. It is calling for all individuals and entities involved to be identified and held accountable. At the same time, the Office of the Attorney General has been requested to initiate legal and law enforcement processes.

The Vanuatu Flag Administrator had warned a year ago that it had zero tolerance for fraudulent documents. It says it became aware of the current fraudulent website through members of the maritime community who were researching false-flag vessels. It notes that as of January, it started placing a unique QR code on all its documents to provide verification. All documents without the QR code are now considered no longer valid.

Vanuatu’s actions come just a month after Tonga, another island nation located to the east of Vanuatu, released an official statement denouncing ships purporting to have a Tongan flag. The Prime Minister’s Office wrote, “Any foreign vessel currently transmitting under the Tongan flag is doing so fraudulently and without authorization from the Kingdom of Tonga.”

Tonga, they noted, had closed its international ship registry in 2002. At the time, the government admitted the international registry had been established to raise money but had turned into an embarrassment. Israel had stopped a vessel registered in Tonga and reported that it was smuggling arms to the Palestinians. Other reports tied some of the ships to human trafficking, transporting illegal immigrants into Europe. The government decided the reputational harm was far beyond the monetary benefits and ordered an end to the international registry.

A third Pacific nation, the Cook Islands, at the beginning of January, also highlighted a false flag operation. One of the tankers caught in the U.S. efforts at Venezuela, the Bertha, was falsely identifying as being registered in the Cook Islands. The government highlighted that the vessel had been removed from the registry after just nine months in 2024 but was still identifying the Cook Islands registry.

Tonga and Vanuatu each said they were reaching out and working with the International Maritime Organization. The IMO and several countries have been looking into the problem of false flags and taking better steps to enhance enforcement.

The German publication Deutsche Welle, reporting on the ongoing false flag problem, recently wrote that at least 29 ships were reporting registry in either Tonga or the Cook Islands. Of those vessels, 21 are sanctioned tankers.

The Equasis database currently lists 15 tankers as falsely claiming registration in the Cook Islands, not counting the Bertha, which later claimed its flag in Curacao. It lists another 14 tankers claiming registry in Tonga. Equasis does not track false flag reports for Vanuatu, and the government, in its statements, did not identify if any vessels had been identified as having taken advantage of the false operation.