Information Fusion Centre (IFC) issued its latest infographic, providing a summary of incidents against ships in the Singapore Strait as of 1 December 2022.
Of the seven new incidents, five occurred in Phillip Channel, and two occurred in the Westbound Lane of the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), within the Singapore Strait.
Of note, the five incidents in Phillip Channel during Nov 2022, is the highest number of incidents in Phillip Channel recorded within a month since Jan 2022.
In all the incidents, the perpetrators were not armed, and there was no confrontation and injury reported. Of note, most of the incidents reported items stolen.
Two incidents on 21 Nov 2022 occurred within 2 hours and 0.5nm apart from each other; assessed likely to be conducted by the same group of perpetrators due to similar group size (3-14 perpetrators), proximity of location, and time between incidents.
Credit: IFC
Modus Operandi
Based on the incident reports this year, in most cases, the perpetrators avoided confrontation, and fled immediately upon being sighted by crew.
Perpetrators are usually unarmed, and in group of average 4-6 pax, and they use small boats to target slow-moving vessels (7-12 knots) with low freeboard.
