Beware of fraud agent iswan guidelines for seaman

 Recently, social media has been flooded with the cases of seafarers being conned for money by fake agents. Among such cases, there are also cases of unregistered agents recruiting seafarers using someone else's RPSL number, and they lure seafarers with false promises and eventually force them to work on unseaworthy vessels.

In light of these incidents, we have decided to share a similar case handled by ISWAN and highlight the steps taken to provide support to the seafarers.

Back in 2019, ISWAN received calls from three separate seafarers from the East UP region of India. They had completed their pre-sea training at a non-DG approved institute named ‘SEALA*** MARITIME ACADEMY' which is situated in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. Seafarers were asked to pay sums ranging from 1.5 lakhs to 2 lakhs (by cash) to the academy to find a job at sea and were lured in the name of a good ship. The seafarers fell into their trap and raised money from different sources in order to pay the institute. Later, all of them were issued contract letters from a registered manning agent and all seafarers were sent to Iran to join a ship named 'MV AAEIN'.

After reaching Iran, the local agent forced them to work on an unseaworthy vessel, and even the name of the vessel was different from what had been stated in their Form-I. As a result, the seafarers declined to board the ship, but the local agent continued to insist. Since these seafarers did not follow the advice of the Iranian agent, they were treated poorly without food or other essentials. After a while, the seafarers requested the local agent for repatriation but the agent refused their plea and left them stranded in Iran.

The seafarers then contacted their family members and explained the whole situation. The family approached the training institute in Gorakhpur, but the institute refused any help to the seafarers. After being turned down by everyone, the families somehow arranged flight tickets for their loved ones to return home. And upon their return, the seafarers contacted SeafarerHelp and sought guidance on how to move forward in life while ISWAN South Asia forwarded their complaint to DG Shipping in Mumbai for their intervention.

In the meantime, two other seafarers from Tamil Nadu (India) were faced with a similar problem. The seafarers were stranded in Iran and after further investigation, it was found that these seafarers had gone through the same manning agent. They were left stranded by their local agent in Iran after refusing to board an unseaworthy vessel. ISWAN South Asia, along with the Mission To Seafarers, approached DG Shipping on the issue and requested immediate intervention. The DG Shipping Office immediately took action and followed up with the registered Manning Agency, which then arranged for the repatriation of these two seafarers within 48 hours of the appeal.

ISWAN South Asia would like to request budding seafarers to complete their pre-sea training only through DG Shipping approved training institutes in India and to join the ship only through registered manning agents. We have also launched a campaign discouraging Indian seafarers from signing up with unregistered crewing agencies.

Source :- iswan 

Credit goes to :- iswan 

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