New Patterns in Illicit Activity Emerged in 2024
A report from Windward indicates that new methods of illicit activity, including underwater infrastructure damage and the emergence of new convenience flags, complicated the global trading landscape in the last quarter of 2024.
The Q4/2024 Windward Trade Patterns & Risk Insights Report suggests there is a behavioral pattern related to the suggested sabotage of undersea critical infrastructure cables in the Baltic region, for which the monthly average increased by 29% in 2024 compared to 2023.
A suggested sabotage pattern includes visits to the Russian Baltic Sea, followed by slow-speed activity in the European Baltic Sea. In 2024, the monthly average of this sequence increased by 29% compared to 2023. Compared to Q4 2023, the sequence rose by 187% in Q4 2024, ruling out seasonality as a factor.
Windward data also showed that the flag registry of Barbados became increasingly popular in 2024. 20% of the vessels that changed to the Barbados flag in 2024 are owned by Sovcomflot, and all were previously registered under the Gabon flag.
In Q4 2024, both the gray and dark fleets remained fairly consistent, with +830 gray fleet and +1,600 dark fleet vessels. The top three flags for both the dark and gray fleets are Panama, Liberia and Russia.
2024 also saw the emergence of the Arctic region near Russia's LNG2 project emerge as a hub for GNSS manipulations.
