Malacca Strait is Safe, 90% of Maritime Crime Claims Are Bogus, Says Navy

Rear Admiral Achmad Taufiqoerrochman says the Malacca Strait is safe

Contrary to reports of worsening maritime crime in the region, the Indonesian Navy says the Malacca Strait is safe and that as many as 90 percent of the reported incidents in the area are bogus, local media reports.

"The number of criminal cases in the Malacca Strait has declined. However, we believe there [must be a plot] to make the Malacca Strait the most dangerous strait in the world," said Rear Admiral Achmad Taufiqoerrochman, commander of the Navy's Western Fleet (Armabar).

He says that Navy investigations have shown that most of the claims are in fact related to insurance fraud or business competition, with both locals and foreign nationals behind the fraudulent activity.

Where there were cases of vessels being robbed, and the company in question would file a report to claim for the loss on their insurance, Taufiq said they still required investigation but "were not pure crimes."

In recent years much has been made of the rising level of maritime crime in Southeast Asia, with a report last week from Dryad Maritime indicating it has risen 38 percent year-on-year over the first nine months of 2015, and is set to worsen in Q4.

But Taufiq has stressed that those behind a number of true cases of maritime crime have been apprehended, and the waters are safe.

"We have caught the masterminds behind several cases. They are in Batam now. We have investigated their involvement, and we will coordinate with neighbouring countries that are also affected by the cases," he said.

"We can say that the Strait is safe."

The Navy says those joint-effort investigations are aimed at identifying the beneficiaries from maritime crime in the region.

Earlier this year Karsten von Hoesslin, special projects manager at Risk Intelligence, said that while the "foot soldiers" of maritime crime tend to be Indonesian, the "middlemen and big bosses" were "generally Malaysian and Singaporean," while the money often ends up in a "Big Boss" bank account in Singapore.