Piracy is an old phenomenon in our world but today it is one of the most criminal activity on international water straits.
In the last years piracy as a way of "highway-robbery" was a fast way to earn money by robbing ships, crews, passengers and a few times the loading but now pirate activities on the East- and Westcoast of Africa as well in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) marked a nother way for unorganized and organized crime on sea and in international waters.
Kidnapping of ships, crews and loadings is a more dangerous reemergence with new advantages for these groups. Especially around the Horn of Africa and in the Somali Basin, criminal groups are threaten the international commercial shipping as never seen before.
To offer shipping companies and private yacht owners a solution for a better protection of their vessels, in 2004 our company has analyzed and evaluated incidents who are marked as pirate activities.
Than we have deployed an own MARITIME DIVISION within our company and offered our new counter-piracy-program to German and foreign shipping companies as well private yacht owners. Combined with increasing requests to our company for effective unarmed and armed protection of vessels, crews and cargos, i.b.s.® deploys its own MRU Maritime Response Unit.
The Team of our MRU are former Member of Militäry and Police Special Units and possess many years of experience in water-born operations, anti-crime and anti-terrorism operations. On board i.b.s.® team leader will liaise in permanent contact with the Master and SSO advising on all likely scenarios and actions to be taken in the event of a security incident, so a high profile safety and security for your vessels, crews and loads will be warranted and the crew can pay their attention on leading the ship.
Unnecessary activities will be also avoided as well imperiling campaigns. Base for protection teams are the use of non-lethal and lethal equipment whereas the use of non-lethal equipment would be one of first options any time but not least.
Our uniformed and unarmed or armed i.b.s.® maritime protection officers can be deployed to provide a knowledgeable and highly visible maritime security service, serving as an active deterrent to protect the crews, vessels and cargoes or as a on-baord consultant for the master. Once on board, our protection teams provide an evaluation of procedural and physical security measures which are implemented in accordance with the SSP ship security plan and on special requirements of our clients.
Therefore our teams act as the first responders to impending threats, communicating with the bridge, mustering the crew, and effectively repelling an attack while your crew remains out of harm's way.
Security and Saftey is a whole vessel activity and all briefings, trainings and anti-piracy drills provided by the i.b.s.® teams will help to reassure and instill confidence in the crew.
In addition to our on-board services we offer our clients the following examples of our wide range of maritime protection services:
- Threat Assesments for Merchant Vessels and Private Yachts
- Breefings refer to actual piracy activities and tactics
- Examination (audits) of your own back office in the area of Crisis
Management by hijackings as well trainings for staff of your
shipping company
- Counter Piracy training for crews under additional measures for ship
protection and crew self protection including realistic representation
of piracy attacks (on-side trainings abroad or also by harbour and
shipyard downtimes in Germany)
- Consultation for defensive and protective equipment aboard and additional
training of the crews by using this eqipment and creating on-board special
areas (e.g. safe room, muster area)
- Deploying of alert-, communication- as well bridge- and reactions plans plus
pre-passage checklists for each supported vessel
- communication support to vessels crew with CTF's, MARLO, UKMTO,
MSCHOA and NATO during running piracy-incidents
- own i.b.s.® 24 hours back office in Germany during running on-board
protection operations
- Support of the management at ransom negotiations (e.g. Negotiator) and
ransom hand over with strategical partners and under our lead,
during running hijackings of vessels (e.g. transfer and armed escort of
ransom with private jets abroad)
Are you interest in other water-born operations or maritime protection services, as for example security consultancy for private yacht and superyacht owners, security analyses, security consultancy and audits for security and safety of Oil-Rigs and harbour arrangements abroad, it would be a pleasure to offer it after a special inquiry!
