Pole Star Global, provider of maritime intelligence and regulatory compliance solutions, announced that flag state, Panama Maritime Authority, has improved sanctions compliance with Pole Star Global. Since working with Pole Star Global, the Panama Maritime Authority has delisted over 100 vessels from its registry, ensuring immediate sanctions compliance. This has enabled the Panama Maritime Authority to position itself as a responsible flag state, with a zero-tolerance approach to sanctions evasion.
The Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) is an autonomous government agency responsible for governing Panama's extensive maritime sector. This includes its world-leading ship registry, port operations, and seafarer services. It works to promote safe and sustainable maritime activities, enforce international regulations, and provide services like ship registration, vessel inspections, and crew certification through a global network of offices.
With the global shipping industry facing heightened geopolitical and compliance pressures, and the traditional de-flagging process proving too slow, AMP introduced a new fast-track mechanism to remove vessels appearing on official sanctions lists.
The Deputy General Director, Merchant Marine of the Panama Maritime Authority says: “Panama as a responsible flag state decided to create a mechanism to recognise official sanctions lists to de-flag those ships listed through an expedited process.”
Therefore, given the potential implications for compliance and national standing, AMP engaged Pole Star Global to provide independent analysis and verification of vessel activity; enabling swift, transparent, and internationally aligned enforcement action.
With that in mind, Pole Star Global analysts worked with AMP to conduct a detailed review of flagged vessels using integrated maritime intelligence tools. The investigation combined:
- Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA): to detect deceptive practices including dark activity GPS spoofing, and unusual routing patterns.
- PurpleTRAC: for automated sanctions screening and vessel risk assessment – real-time cross-checks against multiple official sanctions lists, analysis of flag history, ownership changes and suspicious activity, and identification of high-risk ownership structures.
- Cross-referencing AIS, LRIT, sanctions lists, and ownership databases: to validate evidence, reduce false positives, and support enforcement actions.
- Long-Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT): for secure, satellite-based positional data: cross-verification with AIS to detect location spoofing, outages and routing anomalies, and independent confirmation of vessel positions during suspected high-risk activity.
With Pole Star Global’s intelligence, AMP was able to rapidly delist over 100 vessels from its registry, ensuring immediate sanctions compliance. Together they confirmed cases involving links to sanctioned jurisdictions or entities; identity manipulation; prolonged AIS signal loss; and deliberate spoofing in embargoed zones, and frequent flag hopping.
They strengthened governance and oversight, by aligning processes with international standards and best practices. They enhanced compliance operations, including faster, evidence-based decision-making; risk-based prioritisation of enforcement cases; reduced delays in vessel assessments; fewer false positives and unnecessary alerts.
“Through proactive oversight and the advanced investigative capabilities of Pole Star Global, the Panama Maritime Authority identified, documented, and removed high-risk vessels with unprecedented speed,” says Dirk Macre, Commercial Director of LATAM and the Caribbean, Pole Star Global. “This decisive clean-up reinforced Panamaʼs role as a responsible flag state and demonstrated a zero-tolerance approach to sanctions evasion.”