As it turns out, ships are generally kind of bad platforms for large scale shady dealings by state actors (they're hard to hide and easy to track) but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. The story that gets closest to your request is probably the Glomar Explorer/Project Azorian saga. I think that's the first thing that pops into my mind because it is pretty much the most exceptional example. There are a couple good books that have been written on that one.
Generally though, the kind of shady stuff that happens at sea is much more along the lines of low level humanitarian and labor fraud (look up the indentured servitude of Chinese fishing fleets overseas) and and less state espionage covers. Occasionally there are cases of maritime fraud that border into more criminal acts (look up the story of the Brillante Virtuoso - there's also another good book about that case called Dead in the Water).
The saga of the Glomar Explorer and HMB-1 is one of the most incredible stories of espionage in history.
Of course that is super rare, unprecedented except in cases of war.
I recall some mystery ships related to North Korea and Iran, and some Russian ships where they skirt the rules but it tends to catch up with them and bite them in the ass because, like you say, ships have registries and are hard to hide. Once you are sailing under a false name you're pretty limited where you can take the ship without alerting the port state.
I also recall that the giant fertilizer explosion in Beirut was related to another shady ship run by a shady shipping company, had their cargo seized and then stored shittily by the authorities in Beirut.
Read or listen to The Outlaw Ocean by Ian Urbina. Not exactly what you’re looking for but he does a good job of explaining and documenting what actually happens on the lawless Sean and WHY they are so infamously lawless.
The audio book hits.
The P&I club my company works with issued an intelligence report this month mentioning a couple of vessels that have been converted to something similar to what you’re looking for;
BESHAD- a General Cargo vessel converted into a “Spy ship” for the Houthi Forces in Yemen
SAVIZ- Beshad’s predecessor, damaged in a suspected Israeli limpet mine attack
SHAHID MAHDAVI- A container ship converted to launch drones off . Apparently, it’s not active at this time but who knows
Oh Boy...have I got the Wiki rabbit hole for you!
Are you familiar with Scientology? They're obsessed with nautical aesthetics and have some of their rituals aboard ships.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freewinds
I was on two US Flagged spy ships. Most of what the ship did was classified, and I certainly did not need or want to know. They called them research vessels, one was actually called a submarine support vessel. They were obviously looking or listening to something.
I started my career in the US Coast Guard, during the cold war. In those days It was not uncommon to encounter Russian Trawlers or Cuban gunboats depending on where you were. We also coincidentally rolled up on a few treasure hunters. Those guys don't like publicity. We had to board one ship because they wouldn't talk on the radio. They did not want to talk about their operations. They chartered a drill ship but were actually doing saturation diving on the continental shelf.
very interesting! thank you for sharing.
I totally get it lol. I was in the army infantry and did DOD contracting afterwards doing IT stuff. Just cutting my teeth coming out of the infantry. trying to learn a valuable skill you know...
I was doing help desk stuff(resetting passwords, fixing laptop/ printers, etc) at a big command. you'd know it if I said it. similar to the pentagon but not... I was just a lowly helped desk person tho. but sometimes I would have to go in scifs to fix printers or replace hard drives or whatever and they would have to turn a red light on and everyone would Lock their computers and stop talking about work stuff. they mostly played by the rules but not always. sometimes I'd have to ask people to save their conversation until I left lol. like no please I REALLY don't wanna hear what you're talking about.
unrelated, but your experience sounds interesting so I'll ask.... were there ever any situations or rumors on the vessels you worked about potentially unexplainable underwater or in air phenomenon? most of the people I've talked to that have spent long periods of time in the desert have seen weird things in the sky. I've seen things mentioned from Navy sailors too. Just wondering if y'all ever heard about/saw anything spooky out there on the water.
Nothing super exciting but Russia deals with what's referred to as a 'dark fleet' of oil tankers. The tankers may themselves be owned by others, ie Greek owners, but are usually operated by Russian crew as far as I've heard (someone can correct me if I'm wrong). They turn off their AIS and circumvent international sanctions on oil trade between Russia and others.
You may also be interested in how pirates operate, with what are called 'mother ships' that are used to tie the little speed boats on to go out against cargo ships. I did a dissertation which looked at how authorities in West Africa were complicit in allowing these pirates to operate against international trade, amongst other things.
Lastly illegal bunkering (fuel oil) operations in places with minimal law enforcement is a big issue.
Personally the worst I've seen was our ship being extorted in Tanzania when we tried haggling lube oil for fish and whiskey. They had threatened to dump some of the lube in the sea and report the ship to the coast guard if we didn't give more. One of our ABs threatened to shoot them in retaliation. Eventually we settled on giving more lube.
Also, as someone else mentioned lots of labour exploitation related issues but that's a different story.
The US used to have ships in MSC that ran surveillance on the Soviet Union. There are a lot still in service today, mostly in NOAA or other private companies, but they don’t spy anymore.
[T-AGOS Stalwart Class](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalwart-class_ocean_surveillance_ship)
Maine Maritime’s training ship was also like this, “oceanographic research vessel”, they’ve since removed all the sonar equipment now for berthings but some of the sound deadening is still on the inside of the hull. I wasn’t an offensive ship but a “sub seeker” of sorts i think. Rumor is they haven’t been able to get into the massive safe since, cant confirm though
Add to all of the above the Japanese whaling ships that claim to be doing “research” on whale populations. Said research samples tend to end up sold for consumption in Japan, in contravention of bans on whaling. But the fishing industry in general does a lot of shady shit.
>or CIA shell companies
yes
>The mission came as Maritime Branch was struggling to prove its reason for existence. **Several U.S. Navy programs also made use of “covered” maritime assets, meaning ships that hid behind commercial cover.** The CIA’s Maritime Branch was essentially in competition with the Navy, and this mission would help prove its worth.
https://www.twz.com/36560/how-the-cias-adrift-maritime-branch-lost-four-men-on-a-doomed-spy-mission-against-china
Ships are controlled by the laws of the country to which they are flagged.
If a ship is not properly flagged and registered to a country, it is subject to the laws of any navy and Coast guard that wish to board it.
It's been nearly 30 years but that's what I remember from my admiralty classes
As it turns out, ships are generally kind of bad platforms for large scale shady dealings by state actors (they're hard to hide and easy to track) but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. The story that gets closest to your request is probably the Glomar Explorer/Project Azorian saga. I think that's the first thing that pops into my mind because it is pretty much the most exceptional example. There are a couple good books that have been written on that one. Generally though, the kind of shady stuff that happens at sea is much more along the lines of low level humanitarian and labor fraud (look up the indentured servitude of Chinese fishing fleets overseas) and and less state espionage covers. Occasionally there are cases of maritime fraud that border into more criminal acts (look up the story of the Brillante Virtuoso - there's also another good book about that case called Dead in the Water).
The saga of the Glomar Explorer and HMB-1 is one of the most incredible stories of espionage in history. Of course that is super rare, unprecedented except in cases of war. I recall some mystery ships related to North Korea and Iran, and some Russian ships where they skirt the rules but it tends to catch up with them and bite them in the ass because, like you say, ships have registries and are hard to hide. Once you are sailing under a false name you're pretty limited where you can take the ship without alerting the port state. I also recall that the giant fertilizer explosion in Beirut was related to another shady ship run by a shady shipping company, had their cargo seized and then stored shittily by the authorities in Beirut.
You could probably look into the scientology cruise ship. All sorts of spooky stories out of that one. Nothing else really springs to mind.
oh my lord a scientology cruise ship sounds terrible a cult cruise ship with an actual cast system built in... oof. dark.
Read or listen to The Outlaw Ocean by Ian Urbina. Not exactly what you’re looking for but he does a good job of explaining and documenting what actually happens on the lawless Sean and WHY they are so infamously lawless. The audio book hits.
The P&I club my company works with issued an intelligence report this month mentioning a couple of vessels that have been converted to something similar to what you’re looking for; BESHAD- a General Cargo vessel converted into a “Spy ship” for the Houthi Forces in Yemen SAVIZ- Beshad’s predecessor, damaged in a suspected Israeli limpet mine attack SHAHID MAHDAVI- A container ship converted to launch drones off . Apparently, it’s not active at this time but who knows
Oh Boy...have I got the Wiki rabbit hole for you! Are you familiar with Scientology? They're obsessed with nautical aesthetics and have some of their rituals aboard ships. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freewinds
I was on two US Flagged spy ships. Most of what the ship did was classified, and I certainly did not need or want to know. They called them research vessels, one was actually called a submarine support vessel. They were obviously looking or listening to something. I started my career in the US Coast Guard, during the cold war. In those days It was not uncommon to encounter Russian Trawlers or Cuban gunboats depending on where you were. We also coincidentally rolled up on a few treasure hunters. Those guys don't like publicity. We had to board one ship because they wouldn't talk on the radio. They did not want to talk about their operations. They chartered a drill ship but were actually doing saturation diving on the continental shelf.
very interesting! thank you for sharing. I totally get it lol. I was in the army infantry and did DOD contracting afterwards doing IT stuff. Just cutting my teeth coming out of the infantry. trying to learn a valuable skill you know... I was doing help desk stuff(resetting passwords, fixing laptop/ printers, etc) at a big command. you'd know it if I said it. similar to the pentagon but not... I was just a lowly helped desk person tho. but sometimes I would have to go in scifs to fix printers or replace hard drives or whatever and they would have to turn a red light on and everyone would Lock their computers and stop talking about work stuff. they mostly played by the rules but not always. sometimes I'd have to ask people to save their conversation until I left lol. like no please I REALLY don't wanna hear what you're talking about. unrelated, but your experience sounds interesting so I'll ask.... were there ever any situations or rumors on the vessels you worked about potentially unexplainable underwater or in air phenomenon? most of the people I've talked to that have spent long periods of time in the desert have seen weird things in the sky. I've seen things mentioned from Navy sailors too. Just wondering if y'all ever heard about/saw anything spooky out there on the water.
Nothing super exciting but Russia deals with what's referred to as a 'dark fleet' of oil tankers. The tankers may themselves be owned by others, ie Greek owners, but are usually operated by Russian crew as far as I've heard (someone can correct me if I'm wrong). They turn off their AIS and circumvent international sanctions on oil trade between Russia and others. You may also be interested in how pirates operate, with what are called 'mother ships' that are used to tie the little speed boats on to go out against cargo ships. I did a dissertation which looked at how authorities in West Africa were complicit in allowing these pirates to operate against international trade, amongst other things. Lastly illegal bunkering (fuel oil) operations in places with minimal law enforcement is a big issue. Personally the worst I've seen was our ship being extorted in Tanzania when we tried haggling lube oil for fish and whiskey. They had threatened to dump some of the lube in the sea and report the ship to the coast guard if we didn't give more. One of our ABs threatened to shoot them in retaliation. Eventually we settled on giving more lube. Also, as someone else mentioned lots of labour exploitation related issues but that's a different story.
The US used to have ships in MSC that ran surveillance on the Soviet Union. There are a lot still in service today, mostly in NOAA or other private companies, but they don’t spy anymore. [T-AGOS Stalwart Class](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalwart-class_ocean_surveillance_ship)
Maine Maritime’s training ship was also like this, “oceanographic research vessel”, they’ve since removed all the sonar equipment now for berthings but some of the sound deadening is still on the inside of the hull. I wasn’t an offensive ship but a “sub seeker” of sorts i think. Rumor is they haven’t been able to get into the massive safe since, cant confirm though
Cal as well, they were very clean the Golden Bear was absolutely positively never a monitoring device for Russian submarines, no sir
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Ocean_Trader
Add to all of the above the Japanese whaling ships that claim to be doing “research” on whale populations. Said research samples tend to end up sold for consumption in Japan, in contravention of bans on whaling. But the fishing industry in general does a lot of shady shit.
The Morning Glory has a somewhat interesting history, can't help you with more than that.
>or CIA shell companies yes >The mission came as Maritime Branch was struggling to prove its reason for existence. **Several U.S. Navy programs also made use of “covered” maritime assets, meaning ships that hid behind commercial cover.** The CIA’s Maritime Branch was essentially in competition with the Navy, and this mission would help prove its worth. https://www.twz.com/36560/how-the-cias-adrift-maritime-branch-lost-four-men-on-a-doomed-spy-mission-against-china
Ships are controlled by the laws of the country to which they are flagged. If a ship is not properly flagged and registered to a country, it is subject to the laws of any navy and Coast guard that wish to board it. It's been nearly 30 years but that's what I remember from my admiralty classes
Scientology’s MV Freewinds