18 June 2026
It is totally foreseeable that a cyber criminal group would want to disable an autonomous ship for ransom! Who would not when the payday is in 100s of millions or even a billion? In that case, some interesting options would appear before the hostage ship owner and interests. One of them being the anti piracy provisions of maritime law. This post looks at India's Maritime Anti-Piracy Act, 2022, (IMAPA 2022) to discuss if this option will add teeth or be a complex web of missteps.
Piracy is a historic maritime activity, famous accounts are easy to find, for example: pirate Blackbeard circa 1718. Obviously, therefore, the propensity of law to treat it in a manner concomitant with its historic entrapments and elements, cannot be overlooked. This is what has happened in the IMAPA, 2022. The statement of objects and reasons gives further strength to this understanding where it acknowledges that 'The provisions of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to armed robbery...'.
Armed robbery in the 21st century is fast becoming a thing of the past, cyber arrest is the new in-thing for criminals. Freeze your assets, ask for ransom, unfreeze, bye bye. No physical presence, little to no evidence unless you have good cyber forensic teams that are expensive, no proximity to do a cat and mouse run with coast guard or the navy. In fact, it is increasingly clear that cyber criminals demand ransom in untraceable bitcoin or other crypto currencies.
It was therefore essential that any new law on piracy envisioned cyber piracy. If after all, the objective of a criminal law is to deter along with stating punitive measures, then such deterrence is manifested through inclusionary words that make it easier for investigative agencies and adjudicatory bodies to bring acts of criminals within the wording of the legislation.
India's Maritime Anti-Piracy Act, 2022 (IMAPA, 2022)
It defines piracy as follows:
(h) “piracy” means—
(i) any illegal act of violence or detention or any act of depredation committed for private ends by any person or by the crew or any passenger of a private ship and directed on the high seas against another ship or any person or property on board such ship;
(ii) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship with knowledge of facts, making it a pirate ship;
(iii) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in sub-clause (i) or sub-clause (ii); or
(iv) any act which is deemed piratical under the international law including customary international law;
Now, here is the difficulty with this wording.
First of all, (i), it expressly envisions that piracy will be conducted from a private ship and directed on the high seas. A cyber criminal will in almost all cases of high seas be using satellite facilitated communications linked to the autonomous ship. This is in the case of a direct attack. In the case of an indirect attack, through a Remote Controlled Centre, the same criminal could be using the systems of an RCC to reach the communication channels of the ship. In either case, they will not be on the high seas in a ship.
(ii) suffers from the same problem, it is merely there to presume that anyone on board of a pirate ship may be deemed to be a pirate. This does not help the making of a case against a cyber pirate.
(iii) is even more problematic because it gives the first blush indication that it may open up the gates for a cyber pirate to be considered within the folds of this definition but tragically links itself to (i) and (ii). Giving the whole idea of a digital arrest-not requiring physical presence-a miss. It is arguable that this clause will lead to some misadventures in court which eventually would lead to delays and consumption of valuable court hours before being thrown out of the window (or, proverbially, off the bench).
(iv) this one is interesting but i will leave it to more research to find out whether we can find cases during Blackbeard's time where arrests were made away from the seas, in cahoots, in connivance, or in complicity, it may be better to check cases where proceeds of piracy were eventually sold on and those acts were brought within the folds of the law of piracy. The obvious though is that when cyber developments themselves are non-customary, not historic, it would be hard to fathom precedents that would be applicable to such an understanding.
This writing first appeared on: https://autonomoushiplaw.com/blog/f/vessel-cyber-arrest-piracy-a-look-at-imapa-2022