Landlocked Kyrgyz Republic Warns IMO That Its Flag Is Being Faked
The register has never entered a single vessel, yet ships are already claiming it
False flag operations continue to move from country to country about as quickly as states can issue warnings about them. The latest notice sent to the International Maritime Organization came at the end of July from the landlocked Kyrgyz Republic, hundreds of miles from the ocean, where shadowy interests appear to be taking advantage of an effort to build an international shipping register.
The Ministry of Transport and Communications wrote to the IMO informing it that the republic "has not granted any authorization to any legal entity or individual to register, operate, or use sea-going vessels under the state flag of the Kyrgyz Republic." It calls any such efforts unauthorised and warns they "shall not entail any legal consequences" for the republic.
Bishkek asked the IMO to circulate the notice among member states to "prevent the unlawful use of the State Flag of the Kyrgyz Republic." The IMO posted the warning on 18 August.
Kyrgyzstan declared independence from the USSR in 1991 and has been building its economy since. It became an IMO member only in February 2024 and has since taken steps towards establishing a registry, copying the IMO documents that set out the proposed structure. It has yet to register a vessel, and Equasis shows no ships claiming the flag.
It is the latest entry on a lengthening list. Vanuatu lodged its own alert in February, saying an operation was passing itself off as its registry and that an investigation had been opened. Tonga and the Cook Islands had already done much the same, though in their case, unlike Kyrgyzstan's, there were ships actually claiming the flag.
Madagascar and landlocked Zimbabwe have also warned the IMO about illegal activity and use of their flags. The Malagasy flag in particular turned up on several shadow fleet tankers.
African states have been among the most heavily abused. Authorities pressed Cameroon after its flag began appearing on a growing number of shadow fleet vessels, with Clarksons Research reporting in February that ships on the Cameroonian flag had increased 126 percent over the previous twelve months. Cameroon wrote to the IMO at the end of May setting out a framework for what it called an ongoing cleaning process of vessel registrations under its flag, and supplied a growing list of vessels whose registration had been revoked or which were claiming it illegally.
The scale is significant. The IMO counted 529 ships falsely flying the flag of a country over a recent twelve-month period, with close to 40 member states seeing their flags used fraudulently without their knowledge or consent.
The United States has been among those pushing for action. The Federal Maritime Commission launched a nonadjudicatory investigation in May 2025 into flags of convenience and states lax in enforcing regulations. Responding to member state advocacy, the IMO's Legal Committee approved a new set of guidelines in April 2026 aimed at improving transparency and due diligence.
