Corruption, Putin, old ships & Cook Islands

Diplomatic traffic reveals private alarm over Rarotonga role in Dark Fleet

For much of the 136 years that the Cook Islands has existed, they’ve been boltholes for assorted criminals, carpetbaggers, tax dodgers and shell companies but nothing quite as onerous as funding Russia’s attempted occupation of Ukraine.

They are not alone in this and fellow high minded ‘Blue Pacific’ states the Marshall Islands and Palau are keenly helping Vladmir Putin illicitly sell his sanctioned oil. It has been the case of decrepit oil tanker Eagle S that has highlighted the role of the Cook Islands, its scheming Premier Mark Brown and its passive if handful of people who don't mind taking pieces of silver for their flag.

Around 100,000 Cook Islanders live in New Zealand, with just 15,000 remaining in the Cooks (roughly the number of civilians killed so far in Ukraine).

Aotearoa-New Zealand government documents obtained by this Substack have shown the Cook Islands ‘open flag shipping register’ - otherwise known as flag of convenience (FOC) - appeals to other seemingly morally questionable but publicly Christian Pacific countries including Nauru, Vanuatu, Palau, Samoa, Tuvalu, Kiribati and Fiji (which currently has a closed registry). Even more extraordinary is the case of the Solomon Islands, already dominated by China, that wants to get into the FOC business. Niue, having learned nothing from its place in the Mossack Fonseca Panama Papers scandal, wants to be part of the corrupt FOC scam. Aotearoa could curb this drive to profit off oceanic anarchy, but instead its officials defend it on the grounds it is not harming Wellington or the New Zealand economy. Morality does not come into it.

The latest manifestation comes from the case of the Cook Islands flagged Eagle S and the way it seems to have ‘lost’ its anchor overtop of a Baltic power cable connecting Finland and Estonia. Eagle S had purchased its flag and registration from a strange body called Maritime Cook Islands (MCI). It was created by the Cook Islands Parliament but seems to not have any political control. Its local office is just over a kilometre from Avatui harbour (which Eagle S would not fit into). They used to have a Google pin highlighting their location (upstairs above Moana Gems near Trader Jacks), but since publishing here, the pin has gone. Non-Cook Islanders run it while promoting themselves as providing FOC services to super-yachts. They even have ‘compliance officers’ to apparently ensure Cook’s flagged ships meet international standards. No where on there website or Facebook is there any mention of flagging aging oil tankers for service in Putin’s Black Fleet.

The Pacific FOC scam has featured earlier in this substack:

Aust/NZ angry at Cook Islands' Russian shadow fleet

Ripping off Pacific flags

Niue joins flag of convenience racket

Palau’s role in Russia’s dark fleet

Cook Islands aiding Russia

Flags have history in the Cooks. Fearful of the French one flying a thousand kilometres to the east in Tahiti, the Cooks became a British protectorate in 1888. In 1901 it was incorporated into the boundaries of a New Zealand colony.