Piracy and armed robbery against ships rose sharply in the first quarter of 2025, according to the International Maritime Bureau, with the waters between Singapore and Indonesia emerging as the most troubling hotspot.
The event date is 2025-04-15, and the new figures show how quickly maritime insecurity can concentrate along a major shipping lane. The bureau recorded 45 incidents worldwide between January and March, up from 33 in the same period of 2024 and 27 in the first quarter of 2023. That is an increase of almost 35% year on year, a jump that drew attention because it came during a period when shipping routes remained under pressure from regional tensions and persistent criminal activity.
The IMB said most of the incidents involved vessels being boarded. Out of the 45 attacks or attempted attacks, 37 ships were boarded, four were hijacked and four were attempted attacks. The group also said the danger to crews remained high. Thirty-seven crew members were taken hostage, 13 were kidnapped, two were threatened and one person was injured in the first quarter.
The sharpest concentration of attacks appeared in the Singapore Straits, where the IMB counted 27 attacks or attempted attacks, compared with seven in the same period a year earlier. The straits are one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors, so even short-lived disruption carries outsized consequences for crew safety, insurance costs and traffic through a route that connects the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
The bureau said 92% of targeted vessels in the Singapore Straits were successfully boarded. Among them were nine bulk carriers and tankers larger than 100,000 deadweight tons. It also reported that guns were involved in 14 incidents in the straits alone, a number the bureau said was more than half the 26 firearm-related piracy cases recorded globally in 2024.
The report did not give a cause for the increase. That absence is notable because maritime security trends often reflect a mix of local enforcement gaps, criminal opportunity, and the movement of larger commercial vessels through narrow lanes that are difficult to patrol continuously.
Michael Howlett, director of the IMB, described the regional surge as concerning and said it highlighted the urgent need to protect seafarers navigating those waters. The bureau urged measures to safeguard crews and vital routes.
The IMB is part of the International Chamber of Commerce and acts as a global reporting point for piracy and armed robbery. Its latest numbers suggest that, despite years of effort to keep the seas open, the threat to shipping can still rise quickly when conditions line up for criminal groups.
The figures also suggest that the problem is not evenly distributed across the world’s shipping map. A surge concentrated in one narrow corridor can change the security posture of carriers, insurers and port operators far more quickly than a scattered series of incidents. That is why the Singapore Straits numbers matter well beyond the immediate reports of boarding and attempted attacks.
