The only difference between pirates of yesteryear and those of today is that today’s pirates have taken off the eye-patches. However, they are just as ubiquitous now as they were then on waterfronts throughout the world. That comment was made to me, many years ago, by a close friend who was an ex-U.S. Navy Commander and a Maritime Shipping Inspector. The fact that the BBC recently reported that port officials routinely demand cash, cigarettes, food and drink as bribes before allowing ships through their jurisdictions only confirms the truth of my friend’s seemingly facetious remark.
So-called “gratuities” are against international anti-corruption laws. But the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) said it received 5,183 reports of such occurrences in 2023. The International Association of Ports and Harbours is working to tackle it.
An ex-captain, Stephen Gudgeon, said he was once held at gunpoint after refusing to hand over cigarettes at a port in Asia. “They took me ashore at gunpoint and I was locked up. I was photographed and fingerprinted, and I was interviewed by two officials in an empty room with just a chair, which I was locked into,” he told the BBC. “And it was when they said to me, ‘Would you like us to inform your family of your detention?’ that I really got quite worried.”
Captain Gudgeon said he was eventually released, after paying a $1,500 (£1,200) fine to for paperwork irregularities, which he believed were spurious and in retaliation for not handing over the cigarettes.
The MACN told the BBC it had received 61,000 reports in more than 1,000 ports across 150 countries since it opened an anonymous helpline in 2011.
Cecilia Muller Torbrand, the head of the MACN, said experiences as intimidating as Mr. Gudgeon’s were uncommon, but that the shipping industry was “quite exposed to corruption risks”, and that the number of incidents reported would be “the tip of the iceberg”. She said this was due to “the combination of frequent government interaction, shipping across multiple jurisdictions and the time element of sailing in and out of ports”.
Captain Gudgeon added that some crew are too afraid to report incidents because they are on contracts and fear they will be blacklisted and unable to get another job.
The former captain, who sailed for more than 40 years before retiring in 2022 and who is on the council of the Nautilus International union and volunteers for the International Seafarers Welfare and Assistance Network, said crews that experience bribery demands face a difficult decision. “If your company found out you’d done it, you could be in real trouble. They could discipline you for giving gratuities when they quite clearly state that you shouldn’t be doing it. But if you want the ship to be able to enter and leave port smoothly and a strict schedule, then what choice do you have.”
He added that he had witnessed officials, whose demands for gratuities had been refused, helping themselves to the ship’s food provisions. Filipino officer John Soria reported that when the container ship he was sailing on came into port in Eastern Europe in 2018, inspectors came on board and tried to take a large 5kg block of cheese that was to supposed to last the crew of 17 half a month. “The official asked me, ‘Is it possible to take this home?’ I couldn’t say no because he was already putting the cheese in the bag.”
Mr. Soria said he called over the cook, who negotiated to cut the cheese in half. “Half is for the vessel, half for him – so we settled with that.”
Professor Helen Sampson, director of the Seafarers International Research Centre at Cardiff University, said: “Sometimes when crews have had their provisions raided, they will sail and there won’t be enough food left on board for everybody before the next port where they have a chance to resupply.”
Guy Platten is the secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping, which is made up of national ship-owning associations, collectively representing 80% of the world’s merchant fleet. He said he was aware that bribery demands were “very distressing for seafarers”. “What we would encourage them to do is contact their company if they’re getting these demands, and then the company can take it from there and can explain that there is not going to be any payment,” he said. “We try and make sure that we act as one and progress is being made, but obviously it still happens.”
I have to add here that such a bureaucratic response is totally useless for a ship’s captain who had a tight schedule to meet. Waiting for head office to do anything, whoever they are, would create unacceptable delays and could also be potentially dangerous.
The MACN said it was working with governments in nine countries to tackle corrupt officials, but conceded there was still much to do.
Ms. Muller Torbrand said the only way it could be stopped was if a majority of companies took a zero-tolerance approach. “[Captains] should not [say], ‘You need to do whatever it takes to get the vessel out.’ No, we challenge these practices as an industry.” She said the MACN was working to help companies understand the risks, have better articulated policies and better internal escalation channels.
The International Association of Ports and Harbours said it was working in partnership with the MACN. In a statement, it said: “Ports and their communities are endeavouring to work with their key stakeholders. Tangible progress has been made in places such as the Gulf of Suez, the Indian subcontinent and in African countries such as Nigeria, as well as in South America such as Argentina. This work alone is not enough, as corruption in and around ports concerns many stakeholders. Port authorities can be involved, but so can customs authorities, shipping agents, freight forwarders, ship suppliers, pilots, surveyors and in fact any member of a particular port community. It is only through a deep-rooted approach at combatting corruption across entire port communities and at the interface between ship and shore that an impact can be made in the long term.”
I might suggest that companies wake-up to the realities of the “on the ground” choices their captains have to make and devise interim plans to help them while the wheels of administrative and regulatory change slowly grind on – hopefully they are already doing that….quietly.
I must admit that, when my friend made his comment to me about today’s pirates have taken off the eye-patches, I thought it was amusing. I had absolutely no idea how true and pervasive it was!
In my years of trading in the Caribbean I ran into a gentleman who owned the airport on a small French Caribbean island. After the second war he bought a number of US landing craft so that he could run cigarettes through the Caribbean. It was rumored that he was one of the largest export markets of a major US cigarette company for an island of less than 1,000 people. He also liked small Sazuki pick up trucks because when they got stuck in the sand at night loading the cigarettes onto the landing crafts his men could pick them up and carry them off the beach.
The only thing missing from this gentleman to pirates of previous years was that he had two legs and no parrot.