Kanikosen Data

Fisheries intelligence, structured for analysts who can’t afford to be wrong.

The most comprehensive fishing vessel registry in the world, normalised into a relational database your risk, compliance, and research teams can actually query. Cross-referenced across 150+ public registries and official lists.

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Tracked vessels
0
Historical identities
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Official sources
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Fields per identity
What’s inside

Six capability layers, one normalised schema.

Every row is traced to a source. Every historical identity is preserved. What Kanikosen licenses is the reconciliation layer — stable identities, normalised fields, typed relationships — built on top of the public record. Nothing is inferred silently.

01 Identity & history

Full chronology per vessel — not just the current flag.

Every identity snapshot is preserved: name, flag, IMO, MMSI, IRCS, registry numbers. 2.25M identity rows across 1.18M vessels. Trace reflagging and detect identity laundering.

IMOMMSIIRCS
02 Ownership graph

Owners, operators, and the relationships between them.

333K deduplicated entities linked through typed relationships.

EntitiesRelationshipsAdresses
03 Alerts & sanctions

OFAC, EU, UK, IUU lists — reconciled to vessels and entities.

Thousands of vessel and entity level alerts and risk events, automatically updated by the sysytem.

Vessel alertsEntity alertsIUU listings
04 RFMO & registry membership

2.08M records across 23 public registries and authorised-vessel lists.

ICCAT, IOTC, WCPFC, IATTC, NPFC, CCAMLR, NEAFC, NAFO, SIOFA, GFCM, SEAFO, SPRFMO, CCSBT, FFA, EU CFR, and more — harmonised into one table keyed by identity.

Vessel registrations13 RFMOs
05 Technical specifications

67 normalised fields in SI units — ready to filter.

GT, GRT, DWT, LOA, beam, draught, main & auxiliary engine power, fish-hold volume, carrying capacity, construction material, year built. 133 vessel types, 79 FAO-tagged gear types.

SI units133 vessel typesFAO ISSCFG gear
06 Country context

Flag-state risk signals built in.

IUU assessments across 23 flag states (EU yellow/red cards, US NOAA IUU reports) and subsidy profiles for 20 countries — joinable directly to vessel flag.

IUU assesmentsSubsidy profiles
A vessel, fully resolved

Everything we know about a single vessel — in one record.

A schematic example of a Kanikosen vessel dossier with every foreign key dereferenced. Identifying fields are placeholders.

IMO 9XXXXXX · MMSI 4XXXXXXXX
M/V [placeholder vessel]
3 alerts 5 identities active

Current identity

Std. name
[PLACEHOLDER-A]
Flag
[CC₁]
IMO
9XXXXXX
MMSI
4XXXXXXXX
IRCS
XXXX
Vessel type
Longliner
Primary gear
LLD · Drifting longlines
Year built
2008
LOA / GT / DWT
54.2 m · 499 GT · 612 t
Engine power
1,320 kW
Fish-hold vol.
420 m³

Ownership chain

Operator
[Entity α] Pte. Ltd.
[CC₁]
└─ operator_for
Registered owner
[Entity β] Holdings Ltd.
[CC₂]
└─ beneficial_owner
Ultimate beneficiary
[Entity γ] Group
[CC₃]

Identity history (5)

2022 — present
[PLACEHOLDER-A] · flag [CC₁]
2019 — 2022
[PLACEHOLDER-B] · flag [CC₂]
reflag · name change
2016 — 2019
[PLACEHOLDER-C] · flag [CC₄]
reflag
2011 — 2016
[PLACEHOLDER-D] · flag [CC₁]
ownership change
2008 — 2011
[PLACEHOLDER-E] · flag [CC₁]
built & registered

Alerts & sanctions

OpenSanctions — shadow fleet
Tagged “mare.shadow” after identity pattern match against a Tokyo MOU detention record.
2024-11-08 → active
RFMO — IUU listing
Listed on a Regional Fisheries Management Organization IUU vessel list.
2023-06-12 → 2024-06-12
Port State Control — detention
Detained for discrepancy between stated gear and observed onboard equipment.
2022-03-17 · resolved
Access

One JSON API. Query the fleet, drill into a vessel.

Everything above is exposed through a read-only REST API. Filter 1.18M vessels by flag, gear, ownership, registrations, or physical specs — then drill into a single vessel or entity for the fully dereferenced record.

Provenance

Cross-referenced from the sources that matter.

Selected sources currently ingested or cross-referenced. Every row in Kanikosen is auditable back to the list that published it — one of 158 distinct issuers and registries.

ICCAT
Intl. Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas
RFMO
IOTC
Indian Ocean Tuna Commission RAV
RFMO
WCPFC
Western & Central Pacific Fisheries Commission RFV
RFMO
IATTC
Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission
RFMO
NPFC
North Pacific Fisheries Commission
RFMO
CCAMLR
Commission for Antarctic Marine Living Resources
RFMO
NEAFC
NE Atlantic Fisheries Commission
RFMO
NAFO
NW Atlantic Fisheries Organization
RFMO
SIOFA
Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement
RFMO
GFCM
General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean
RFMO
SEAFO
SE Atlantic Fisheries Organisation
RFMO
SPRFMO
South Pacific RFMO
RFMO
CCSBT
Commission for Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna
RFMO
FFA
Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency
Regional
FAO GR
Global Record of Fishing Vessels
UN registry
EU FFR
EU Community Fishing Fleet Register
Regional
UK MMO
Marine Management Organisation vessel list
National
Canada DFO
Department of Fisheries and Oceans vessel list
National
OPRT
Organisation for the Promotion of Responsible Tuna Fisheries
Industry

+ 134 additional national registries, port-state control MOUs, IUU lists, and auxiliary sources. Kanikosen’s licence covers the reconciliation layer built on top of these sources; the upstream lists remain their publishers’.

Built for

Who Kanikosen is for.

Four workflows where patchy, flat vessel data breaks down — and a normalised registry earns its keep.

Risk & compliance

Maritime risk & KYC screening

Resolve sanctioned entities to the vessels they actually control — even when the vessel has been reflagged three times under a shell.

  • Reconcile OFAC / EU / UK / UN lists to vessels by IMO and to entities by alias
  • Detect shell-company ownership patterns via the 297-edge entity relationship graph
  • Join to country IUU assessments and subsidy profiles for flag-state risk
Data platforms

Enrichment for AIS & tracking products

Layer a verified identity, ownership, and regulatory record onto every AIS signal — attribute vessels that tracking feeds alone cannot.

  • Join by MMSI · IMO · IRCS to enrich vessel tracks with authoritative identity
  • Resolve dark-vessel events against historical identities and MMSI spoofing flags
  • Cross-reference RFMO registrations to validate declared fishing authorisation
Enforcement

Government & NGO investigations

Follow beneficial ownership through jurisdictions. Detect flag-hopping. Build evidentiary chains across sources fragmented today.

  • Full reflagging history per vessel, timestamped and sourced
  • Entity relationship graph — parent, subsidiary, front company, intermediary, operator-for
  • Every field sourced, so evidence quality travels with the data
Research

Fisheries science & policy research

Aggregate fleet structure, capacity, and gear composition at a fidelity no public registry currently offers — referenced in peer-reviewed work since 2015.

  • Capacity by flag, gear, RFMO — filterable on SI-normalised physical fields
  • Longitudinal fleet evolution via the chrono-ordered identity table
  • FAO ISSCFG-compliant gear classification with pelagic / demersal tagging
Coverage

Global scope. Uncommon depth per vessel.

Kanikosen’s scope significantly exceeds official tools such as the FAO Global Record. Field coverage across the 1.18M tracked vessels, computed on the current identity of each vessel.

Flag state
97%
Vessel type
57%
Physical specs (LOA)
56%
Gear type
56%
Tonnage (GT)
44%
MMSI
37%
≥ 1 RFMO registration
36%
Owner entity
35%
Year built
34%
IRCS call sign
22%