Vijay D Chafekar, Executive Director of ReCAAP ISC  Credit: Marcus Hand

There were 80 incidents of vessel boardings and robberies reported in the Malacca and Singapore Strait in the first half of 2025, of which 79 were in the Singapore Strait, according to figures released by ReCAAP. This compares to just 21 incidents last year, and they accounted for 84% of all incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships reported in Asian waters in the first half of the year.

In the first week of July a further 11 incidents were reported in the Singapore Strait bringing the total for the year-to-date to 90.

The incidents are not classified as piracy as they all take place within territorial waters, primarily those of Indonesia, that the busy sealane runs though.

In a media briefing for the release of its half year report ReCAAP characterised the incidents as “opportunistic” and “hit and run”.

Of the 80 incidents in the Singapore and Malacca Straits reported in the first half of the in 50% nothing was stolen, and in 90% the crew was not injured.

“In most cases the crew are not harmed, the perpetrators intention is not to harm the crew, but petty theft,” said Vijay D Chafekar, Executive Director of ReCAAP ISC. “The moment they are detected they abandon their attempt.”

The vast majority of the incidents, 91%, occur under the cover of darkness between 20:00 – 05:99 hours, and took place around the Philipps Channel in the eastbound lane of the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) in the Singapore Strait where vessels have to slow down to make a turn.

The most commonly stolen item were engine spares in 29% of incidents, followed by ship stores and properties in 10% of boardings. However, Chafekar said he thought is was very unlikely engine spares were being specifically targeted to be sold on the black market.

“In some cases we do have CCTV recordings to see the behaviour of these perpetrators and you could see that there are actually picking up anything they kind find loosely lying around from ropes to scrap metal,” he said.

Lee Yin Mui, Deputy Director, ReCAAP ISC, said they did not see the groups carrying out the boardings as being the work of criminal syndicates. “These are opportunistic perpetrators because if you see the way they carried out the boarding from one ship to within a short period of time they are really looking at ships that are less vigilant.” ReCAAP characterises such incidents as “hit and run”.

“These incidents are very opportunistic hence we always encourage the crew to be vigilant,” she said.

ReCAAP said that ship masters transiting the area of concern should increases watchkeeping on deck in hours of darkness and install preventative measures.

While urging increased vigilance from the shipping industry the authorities of the coastal states, primarily Indonesia in this case, were called on to increase prevatative measures. “I urge littoral State authorities to increase their presence in locations where incidents are occurring repeatedly, and to arrest the culprits who are boarding ships illegally to steal items,” said Chafekar.

In the past when arrests and prosecutions have taken place the number of incidents has fallen.