- These issues are directly connected to today's geopolitical situation. The reason we want to examine them is that they pose an enormous environmental risk, says Hege Høyer Leivestad at the Department of Social Anthropology.
She leads CargoCrime, which is fully funded by UiO:Energy and Environment to investigate how maritime environmental crime is carried out, monitored and prosecuted.
An ocean of grey areas
Many of the vessels in the shadow fleet transport large quantities of crude oil, are old and poorly maintained. Leivestad points out that many of them are found in the Baltic Sea, because sanctions against Russia mean they can no longer transport their oil legally.
- The maritime authorities in the countries around the Baltic Sea are genuinely worried and are simply waiting for a major environmental disaster. The Estonian coastguard can see the oil tankers drifting past, but they cannot do anything about it, she says.
But it is not only Russia that has a shadow fleet, even though Russia has the largest one, according to Leivestad. Countries such as Venezuela, Iran and North Korea also maintain shadow fleets.
She explains that they avoid official systems by using ageing cargo ships with complex and partly concealed ownership structures.
Ghost ships
- If we take Russia as an example. Old oil tankers with hidden ownership. This means they can have a great many owners and different names, which makes it difficult to trace their ownership structures. In addition, it is often unclear in which country the ships are registered, which flag they sail under, she says, adding:
- Here they operate through what you might call shell companies and obscure flag states.
But shadow fleets are nothing new.
- It is an older phenomenon that has come into focus after the invasion of Ukraine, she explains.
The term was originally used for vessels that "went dark" by switching off tracking systems (AIS) to conceal transport from internationally sanctioned countries, particularly North Korea and Iran in the 2010s, according to a recent BBC article.
Waste dumping
In addition to being the overall project leader for CargoCrime, Leivestad also shares responsibility for research on illegal global waste transport, as she has worked in major logistics ports and with global supply chains for the past eight years.
- It is a huge industry, operating in the grey area between the legal and the illegal, and largely taking place in containers.
Those involved, she notes, range from small groups embedded in criminalised family networks to states that have systematised and facilitated this waste transport.
Organised environmental crime
- And what happens? Well, the waste ends up in unregulated locations. Huge rubbish dumps are created, which can have very serious environmental consequences, Leivestad stresses.
As she points out, certain countries have become destination countries for waste.
- There have been major problems with illegal waste shipments to, among others, Malaysia and Indonesia.
West African countries are also said to be major recipients of illegal waste. In Europe, Leivestad highlights Turkey as the main recipient country for the EU's exports of electronic waste.
- When you look at waste transport involving, for example, electronic waste, there is a lot of toxic material that seeps into the soil and out into seas and lakes, she says.
Reducing the risk of insurance fraud
According to Leivestad, shipping is vulnerable to false insurance claims and economic environmental crime. The project therefore also aims to develop new methods for risk assessment.
- We will use statistical modelling and machine learning. The hope is to develop robust methods for identifying and reducing risk - something that the industry and public authorities can benefit from, the project leader concludes.
Lead researchers in CargoCrime:
- Illegal waste transport: Hege Høyer Leivestad - Department of Social Anthropology (SAI)
- Shadow fleet: Kjersti Lohne - Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law (IKRS)
- Risk and fraud: David Ruiz Banos - Department of Mathematics
They are currently in the process of recruiting two doctoral research fellows and one postdoctoral researcher, who will carry out the research itself..
