Marine Traffic

MarineTraffic is the world's leading ship tracking and maritime intelligence platform, providing real-time and historical positions for vessels worldwide using AIS (Automatic Identification System) transponder data. It tracks commercial vessels, tankers, cargo ships, passenger vessels, and smaller craft equipped with AIS.

For OSINT investigators, maritime vessel tracking is a critical intelligence source for investigations involving shipping, trade, sanctions evasion, smuggling, and maritime incidents. MarineTraffic provides the public intelligence layer for maritime OSINT that FlightAware provides for aviation.

Vessel position history reveals where a ship has been over time — port calls, routes, and anchorage locations create a chronological record of maritime activity. When investigating trade sanctions violations, a vessel's historical track showing ports of call in sanctioned countries is significant evidence of potential violations.

Port call records available through MarineTraffic document all arrivals and departures from specific ports, with dates, times, and duration of stay. This records vessels' interactions with specific port facilities — relevant for cargo origin tracing, sanctions compliance, and supply chain investigation.

AIS-off detection is an advanced intelligence technique: vessels that turn off their AIS transponders create tracking gaps. Comparing MarineTraffic's historical position data with satellite imagery or other sources can reveal vessels that were operating covertly — a common technique in sanctions evasion operations.

Vessel ownership research connects ship names and IMO numbers to registered owners, managers, and flag states. Ownership structures for shipping companies frequently involve layers of shell companies — MarineTraffic's vessel data combined with corporate registry research can begin unwinding these structures.

For incident investigation, MarineTraffic's historical data can reconstruct vessel positions during specific incidents — collisions, grounding, suspicious encounters — by replaying the recorded AIS tracks.

Document vessel IMO numbers, names, flag states, owner details, position histories, and port calls relevant to the investigation with query timestamps.