Economist Podcasts Bust a vessel: NATO v dark fleets
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Oct 28, 2025 
Alice Su, a Senior international correspondent for The Economist, dives into NATO's challenges with shadow fleets in the Baltic, revealing tactics used to evade detection. Don Wineland, the China business and finance editor, discusses the rise of 200 million gig workers reshaping China's economy, highlighting their precarious conditions yet promising flexibility. Meanwhile, John Fasman, a culture correspondent, explores the intricacies of antisemitism through Mark Mazower's book, tracing its evolution and the modern political landscape it inhabits.
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Latvian Patrol Encounters A Mystery Vessel
- Alice Su boarded the Latvian patrol ship Virsaitis to inspect a suspicious fishing vessel near an undersea gas pipeline.
- NATO officers described checking identities and asking crews to turn off phones to guard against hacking and deception.
Shadow Fleets Mask Ships And Scale Rapidly
- Shadow fleets tamper with identification signals and swap flags to disguise ownership and intent.
- Their numbers surged after Russia's invasion, now comprising roughly one-fifth of the global oil tanker fleet.
Shadow Fleets Operate As Freelance Networks
- Shadow fleets operate like freelance services with opportunistic middlemen, not always state-directed.
- This makes it hard to legally link suspicious ships to a specific government even when they service sanctions-evasion trade.
