Investigating the ownership of the Chinese Vessel Yi Peng 3 that Sabotaged Sea Cables

A pressing challenge in financial investigations is establishing ownership as a link between actors and illicit activities. Fortunately, company websites and public and commercial registries make it possible to follow the money fast in an active situation.

The Chinese Vessel Yi Peng 3 proved a useful exercise in quickly identifying owners in an active situation.

The first step in monitoring active situations is to build a timeline and this is relatively easy to do with news and social media.

I used X (formerly Twitter), BlueSky and Google's news feed to construct the timeline:

1. On Sunday, 15th of November 2024, the Swedish telecommunications company, Arellion, reported that a cable between Sweden and Lithuania was cut. The cable handles 1/3 of Lithuanian internet traffic according to Telia's chief of technology, Andrius Šemeškevičius.
2. In the early hours on Monday a telecommunications cable between Finland and Germany was cut
3. MSN reported four days later that the Danish naval vessel P525 had detained the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3 suspected of destroying the cables.

A shallow search for precedents can add context to the situation. Previous reports mentioned that the Chinese ship, Newnew Polar Bear, traveling from a Russian port, had damaged the Balticonnector natural gas pipeline in the Gulf of Finland on the 7th of October 2023. Chinese authorities admitted that the ship was responsible for the damage but that it was an accident due to bad weather.

With a timeline in place and from monitoring media it was time to dig up information about Yi Peng 3.

Marine Traffic is a useful tool for identifying vessels. It provides live updates on the vessel's position and useful metadata. Relevant to our use case is Yi Peng 3's IMO number, 9224984.

An IMO is a permanent number assigned to a ship for identification. Marine Traffic didn't have sufficient metadata on Yi Peng 3, so I collected identifiable information from another service called Magic Port.

Magic Port also has information about Yi Peng 3's commercial manager and this information is corroborated by the China Shipbuilding and the China Classification Society for ships.

Interestingly, the company address is currently marked as a Military Management Zone according to Matilda Jokinen at the Helsingin Sanomat.

Now that we know the commercial manager we can start looking for beneficial ownership information.

A quick search on Dun & Bradstreet's business directory tells us the key principal is Jianjun Chen, useful for narrowing our search.

Chinese companies often have a Chinese legal name and an English legal name. Through some finessing I found the company website for NINGBO YIPENG SHIPPING CO LTD under the legal English name: http://www.nbmc.com.cn/NBHYGF/contents/634/21528.html.

The company website contains a surprising amount of data on the company, including company email.

The company trades on the Shanghai Stock Exchange so a simple search on investing.com reveals who the directors are (see appendix).

Another google search with the keyword "parent" returns a hit: Zhejiang Provincial Energy Group Co Ltd.

That the owner of Yi Peng 3 is a subsidiary of Zhejiang, a Chinese state owned energy company is revealing.

Summary

Now that we've traced the ownership of Yi Peng, let's place the ownership information in context.

• The Yi Peng 3, a Chinese vessel owned by a subsidiary of the state owned company Zhejiang, is accused of destroying infrastructure in the Baltic.
• Some claim "winds" made the ship slow down above the cables. The ship slowed down when the closest ship to it, the Lady Hanneke, sped up. This rules out "strong winds" as @aunsson points out.
• Yi Peng 3 was travelled from Russian ports.
• Russian sabotage ship Yantar transmitted its position for 4 minutes to show her presence above gas pipelines between Britain and Ireland. Ireland imports 80% of its gas.
• The sabotage happened against a backdrop of heightened tensions between NATO and Russia. President Biden's decided to lift restrictions on the use of American long-range missiles by Ukraine while Putin lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons.

Appendix

Company Officers