12.03.2020

Every tenth sailor in the world use forged certificates

26-year-old Kaliningrad resident, who very much wanted to become a seafarer, was caught using fake documents. According to the press service of the Western  Linear Division of  Ministry of internal affairs of Transport Policy, during employment he presented a false qualification certificate to the crewing company. The falsification of documents was confirmed by minimalistic examination, a criminal case was opened  under the article Knowingly use of a  forged document" so now he faces imprisonment for up to six months.

Meanwhile, fake sea certificates are a huge problem in the recent decades in the Maritime labor market, its scale is not even possible to accurately determine. It is almost impossible to calculate how many false  certificates have been issued to seafarers around the world and how many seafarers work with them on board the vessels. Obviously these cases come to the surface but of course, not all of them.

When the scale of the problem was not so great and the scammers were just beginning to develop their activities, it was easy to identify a fake due to the poor quality of realization. For example, back in 2001, the IMO found 12  635 cases of certification forgeries, and these are only those that were identified. Today false documents are extremely difficult to distinguish from the original. There are thousands of fake certificates in circulation today. A pilot project sponsored by the European Union called "GetQuality" showed that almost every tenth seaman in the world, directly or indirectly, has fake certificates."The competence of seafarers is the most important factor in the safe and efficient operation of ships and has a direct impact on the safety of life at sea and the protection of the marine environment. The international Convention on training, certification and Watchkeeping for seafarers (STCW) was established to ensure that the highest standards of competence for seafarers are maintained worldwide. However due to fake certification companies always run the risk of hiring an incompetent person, "- the IMO notes. – The problem of forged certificates undermines the system of training and certification, arouses suspicion and distrust between partners and countries and also creates a threat to human safety at sea, - says the Chairman of the Seafarers Union of Russia Yuriy Sukhorukov. – This increases the risk of personnel performing tasks that they are not trained to perform. And this, first of all, is a risk to the safety of the crew, the vesels and the shipping in general. Therefore it is very important to develop a verification process after confirming the certificate. Its absence is the biggest problem today.


↑ 

Up