Vessel and Maritime Incident Database

This section of the SIPRI website contains archived research.

The Vessel and Maritime Incident Database is no longer maintained or available to download.

The database contains details of over 2500 incidents involving destabilizing military equipment, dual use goods and narcotics-related transfers as well as untaxed or smuggled commodities such as tobacco, oil and timber. Other activities recorded in the database include illegal, unreported and undocumented fishing as well as the movement of undocumented migrants in vessels that constitute a safety risk to their passengers.

Vessels included in the VMID are sea-going vessels of all sizes reported to have been involved in illicit or potentially destabilizing activities by a credible source.

Information in the database published in SIPRI publications is based on open sources- books, journals, media articles, non-governmental and governmental reports either published or obtained through freedom-of-information requests. The database also contains a small proportion of cases based on original shipping documentation which is not included in SIPRI publications.

The database is a not-for-profit academic and policy analysis tool designed to provide a basis for further quantitative, qualitative and field-based research. The database is no longer maintained or available to download.