The Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 and its 22 crew members have been at anchor in Kattegat for a week. The ship is closely monitored by ships from several Baltic navies (Denmark, Germany, Sweden and apparently Finland). This is because he is suspected of having damaged two telecommunications cables on Sunday November 17 and Monday November 18: the C-Lion 1, between Germany and Finland, and the BCS cable, between Lithuania and the Swedish island. from Gotland. Indeed, the 225 meter long, 75,000 dwt ship which set sail from Ust-Luga, Russia, was in the area of the two incidents, and its automatic identification system (AIS) was cut off for several hours. Circumstances which are reminiscent of the NewNew Polar Bear affair, the Chinese ship having cut the Balticonnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia.
In this context, the slightest clue is scrutinized and analyzed. Thus, the French company Unseenlabs, which specializes in satellite detection and monitoring of radio frequency (RF) signals emitted by ships, looked into the ship's movements. In a new “use case”, the company reveals that the bulk carrier has repeatedly adopted strange behaviors in recent months. At the end of October (between the 24th and 31st), its satellites spotted the Yi Peng 3 near submarine cables in the Strait of Gibraltar, adopting an “erratic”, “zigzagging” trajectory, while bulk carriers usually follow direct and predictable routes. And it wasn't a first. The ship had already had strange trajectories between May 9 and 13 near the Suez Canal, “a global bottleneck for trade and infrastructure,” writes Unseen Labs, but also between July 17 and 17 and from September 6 to 8 in the Barents Sea, near Murmansk, a strategic region of the Arctic, sometimes in Russian waters, sometimes in Norwegian waters. And to conclude that “the behavior of the ship, associated with its proximity to sensitive underwater infrastructure, suggests more than a simple coincidence”.
The Rennes company, a nugget of French New Space created in 2015, whose growth is exponential thanks to its proprietary technology based on intelligence of electro-magnetic origin (ROEM) from space, was able to detect RF emissions from the Yi Peng 3 on November 22 and compared it to AIS data to confirm its identity. Having his fingerprint, she can now follow him, even if he cuts his AIS to slip away. A common practice of “ghost fleet” ships.
Furthermore, the investigations into the ruptures of the two cables were joined. They involve investigators from Finland, Sweden and Lithuania, with the help of the European agency for judicial cooperation Eurojust. At the scene of the C-Lion1 cable rupture, the collection of clues has been completed. Finnish police reported that investigators collected samples of the cable for further analysis by the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) forensic laboratory and conducted imaging of the seabed.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Swedish investigators suspected the ship of having left an anchor lying on the bottom for around 100 miles. But the information has not been confirmed by an official source. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said at a press conference that “Sweden has made a formal request to China to cooperate with the Swedish authorities to clarify what happened.”
© An article from the editorial staff of Mer et Marine. Reproduction prohibited without consent of the author(s).
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