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“Today, espionage is more difficult to detect. Whereas before it was mainly research or military ships, now we also use non-military boats,” explains Thomas De Spiegelaere, spokesperson for the CSM. “These can in particular be merchant ships, but also fishing boats. This therefore makes detection more complicated.” You should especially be interested in them when they suddenly navigate more slowly.
The office of North Sea Minister Paul Van Tigchelt confirms the trend. “There are also Chinese dredgers which have a dual status: they can be used for economic but also military purposes. This obviously does not make it easy to spot.”
The Belgian surveillance services are particularly keeping an eye on the Russian shipowner Norebo. The fishing company has more than 40 vessels officially searching for cod or hake. But one of its ships, the Taurus, has been linked to espionage activities in the past. In Belgium, it is the “Kapitan Sokolov” that the CSM is particularly monitoring, after it was spotted several times in the North Sea. “It is a ship with a lot of technology on board, which can be used both for fishing and for espionage,” according to the Cell spokesperson.
