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Secret tech-tricks in Baltic waters put ships in danger - heres what we know

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Baltic Sea shipping faces double-trouble with strange Chinese vessels and fake location signals making waters unsafe. Ships captains deal with wrong position data while govts cant do much to stop it

The Baltic Sea faces a two-sided problem: suspicious Chinese ships near sea-floor cables and fake ship-location data (that makes vessels appear in wrong spots)

In late-2023 Yi Peng 3‚ a Chinese bulk-carrier became main focus after cable damage near Baltic waters; Danish Swedish and German vessels keep watch while its anchored between their shores

Ships in Finnish waters create extra issues: they turn off tracking systems and show wrong positions. Pekka Niittyla from Finnish Coast Guard points to growing concerns; while transport minister Lulu Ranne thinks Russia messes with nav-systems

Modern shipping depends on sat-nav tech: ships must use auto-identification systems to show locations. Last year UK found these systems bring $17.2m yearly benefits but now Russia breaks both satellite signals and ships data-sharing

This is something that is coming in the wake of the Ukraine war

Nils Wang‚ retired Danish Navy chief

Black Sea became testing-ground for location tricks; since about 7 years ago ships reported weird position errors. Research shows nearly 10000 cases of signal problems in different spots; Russian shadow-fleet (carrying oil above price caps) often hides its real position

Danes found GPS problems on ferries caused by truck-mounted jammers. Anders Grenstad‚ ex-Swedish Navy chief says: Russians excel at disrupting nav-systems; they focus on Gulf of Finland to hide whats going in-and-out of their ports

The tricks make real danger for ships: wrong positions could cause crashes and hurt sea life. Line Falkenberg Ollestad from Norwegian Shipowners group explains: turning off tracking is ok only during pirate threats

Ship masters deal with delays cause they must slow down when signals look wrong; many sailors dont know old navigation methods anymore. Experts think other countries might copy these tricks - making international shipping even harder

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