August 23, 2026
What Is a False Flag Vessel, and Why Is the Problem Growing?
Executive brief #3 From AIS screening to behavior analysis
What’s inside?
The Automatic Identification System (AIS) has profoundly changed our understanding of what is happening at sea, providing a deeper understanding of where ships are and where they are headed at all times. However, what AIS does not answer is: What is the ship doing? Why is it doing that? What is its importance?
A skilled analyst can answer that question, however, they may require hours or even days to do so. With the rise of false positives, this means transactions would slow down significantly, transforming compliance risks into operational risks.
Training artificial intelligence algorithms to conduct expert shipping analysis automatically speeds-up vessel due diligence processes and provides compliance professionals with always up-to-date recommendations. Such automation helps minimize false positives and maintain existing compliance frameworks and controls without needing additional domain experts.
Key takeaways
- AIS manipulations and sanctions evasion – Behavior analysis can shed light on the context of questionable activities at sea, generating valuable insights that can support decision making.
- Behavior analysis: The case of the Pacific Bravo – To determine whether or not a vessel was evading sanctions requires deep domain knowledge, expertise in sanctions evasion typologies, and above all, time.
- Scale up behavior analysis with artificial intelligence (AI) – Integrating advanced AI capabilities into vessel due diligence enables automatic clearance of low-risk events and flags suspicious patterns of behavior.
Download the full brief
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