Seaman's book verification: spot edits, forgeries and AI fakes
A seaman's book is an identity document and a career record bound together: it identifies the holder as a seafarer to a flag state, and its inner pages record every ship served on, with dates signed and stamped by the master. Both halves attract forgery. The identity pages are altered to give someone a seafarer's transit rights, and the service pages are padded to manufacture the sea time a certificate of competency requires. TamperCheck examines both.
Last updated:
Most often edited
service record entries, seafarer photo, book number
Reviewed by
Shipping companies and consulates processing seafarer visas and crew changes
Forgery methods seen on a seaman's book
Method
How it works and what it leaves behind
- Photograph substitution
- The photograph is lifted and replaced so a genuine book is used by someone else. The image sits under a laminate and usually behind a stamp or perforation crossing its edge, so a substitution leaves a laminate boundary, a stamp that no longer continues across the join, and a colour and noise profile unlike the page around it.
- Service entries added for sea time
- Engagements the seafarer never served are written into the record to reach the sea-time threshold for a higher certificate. Added entries use ink and a stamp that do not match the surrounding pages, and they frequently overlap the dates of an engagement already recorded two pages earlier.
- Expiry date extension
- A single digit moves a lapsed book back into validity. The altered figure rarely matches the character spacing of the issue date printed beside it, and the extension often produces a validity period longer than the issuing authority grants for that class of document.
- Book number and authority fabricated
- A book is presented from an authority the holder has no connection to, numbered in roughly the right shape. Maritime administrations issue in defined series and maintain registers they will confirm against, which is why the number is the field a shipping company checks first.
- Master's stamp reproduction
- Ship stamps are scanned from one page and reapplied to others. A wet stamp varies in ink coverage, catches the texture of the page and overlaps the handwriting beneath it; the copied version repeats at identical rotation and density in every entry that uses it.
- Complete counterfeit books
- Whole books produced with the cover, the numbering and the security printing imitated. These are assessed on substrate and print technology rather than on content, because intaglio, microtext and the way security print sits in the paper are not reproduced by an office printer.
A practical checklist for a seaman's book
1. Check the book number with the issuing maritime authority
Administrations keep a register of seafarer identity documents and will confirm whether a number was issued, to whom, and whether it remains valid. This is the check that settles a fabricated book, and the shipping company is usually best placed to make it.
2. Read the service record against the vessels
Each entry names a ship with a flag and an IMO number. Confirm the seven-digit IMO number passes its check digit and belongs to the vessel named, and that sign-on and sign-off dates do not overlap another engagement recorded in the same book.
3. Compare the personal page with the passport
Name, date of birth, nationality and the photograph should match the passport presented alongside the book, and both should match the seafarer identified in the shipping company's invitation letter and in the crew list.
4. Run a forensic check on the photo page and the entries
TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks over a scanned page, the photo zone included, and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 within seconds, with each finding mapped to the region of the page it came from.
What looks wrong on a seaman's book
Service record entries that read right but render oddly
Zoom in on the service record entries and look at the background behind the characters. Edits often leave a faint halo, a patch of slightly different texture or spacing that was fine at full-page view.
A seafarer photo that is set in a slightly different hand
Zoom in on the seafarer photo and compare weight, spacing and edge sharpness with the lines above and below it. A substituted value is rarely typeset exactly like the original, even when the typeface name matches.
Names and dates that do not match the passport
Compare traveller names and travel dates against the passport and visa application. Forged itineraries often drift on spelling or order.
Sender details that cannot be reached
Invitation and sponsor letters should be reachable through an independently found address or number, not just the ones printed on the page.
Templates shared across unrelated applicants
Itineraries, bookings and invitations built from the same template turn up across applications. Compare against previous submissions.
Inside the forensic analysis of a seaman's book
Portrait substitution and face-swap analysis
The document is isolated from whatever it was photographed on, then the portrait region is assessed against the card surface around it. A pasted or generated face rarely matches the substrate it was placed onto.
Reference and document number checks
Document, account, and reference numbers are checked for issuer format conformance and against every other place the same value appears on the page.
Stamp authenticity and placement
Stamps are assessed for whether the ink was impressed onto the page or printed as part of it, and for whether the impression was placed digitally after the fact.
And many more checks
The three above are the layers that carry the most weight on a seaman's book. Every upload runs the full suite of 200+ checks regardless of document class, spanning file structure and metadata, pixel-level forensics, font and text rendering, optical and print characteristics, provenance signals, AI-generation signatures, and many more checks.
What to expect on a genuine seaman's book before you test it
The personal pages carry the seafarer's full name, date and place of birth, nationality, the book number in the issuing maritime authority's series, the date and place of issue, the expiry date, the issuing authority itself, the rank or capacity, a photograph and a specimen signature. Many books add height, eye colour and distinguishing marks. The remaining pages are the service record: one entry per engagement, with the vessel's name, flag and official or IMO number, the rank served in, the dates of sign-on and sign-off, and the master's signature over the ship's stamp.
The two halves check each other, and the passport checks both. Name, date of birth and nationality must be identical to the passport presented with the book, and the photograph must be the same person from the same period. Service entries have to run in unbroken chronological order, with no seafarer serving two vessels at once, and each vessel's IMO number is a seven-digit figure with its own check digit that has to correspond to the ship named beside it. A rank in the service record above the capacity endorsed on the personal page is a contradiction the book makes about itself.
Seaman's book fraud: your questions answered
How do I verify a seaman's book?
Start with the book number and the issuing maritime authority, which maintains a register and will confirm whether the document was issued and to whom. Then read the service record: each entry's vessel should match its IMO number, sign-on and sign-off dates should not overlap, and the ranks should build into a plausible career. Finally compare the personal page against the seafarer's passport.
Can a CDC be forged?
Yes. Continuous discharge certificates are forged three ways: the photograph is replaced so a genuine book is used by another person, service entries are added to manufacture the sea time a higher certificate requires, and complete counterfeit books are produced with imitated security printing. The first two are alterations to a real document, and they are what a forensic examination is best placed to find.
What is recorded in a seaman's book?
The personal pages record name, date and place of birth, nationality, book number, issue and expiry dates, issuing authority, rank, photograph and specimen signature. The service pages record each engagement: the vessel's name, flag and IMO number, the capacity served in, the sign-on and sign-off dates, and the master's signature over the ship's stamp.
Why does recorded sea time matter so much?
Because certificates of competency are granted against recorded sea service, so the service pages carry direct commercial value. A few added months can move a seafarer into a rank they have not earned and should not hold at sea, which is why entries are compared against each other for overlapping dates and against the vessels they name.
Which forensic checks matter most for a seaman's book?
It starts where forgeries of a seaman's book most often break: the book number, the issue and expiry dates, and the service entries and endorsements. The rest of a seaman's book is covered by the general pixel, font and metadata layers.
What do forgers change on a seaman's book?
Usually service record entries, seafarer photo, and book number. Those are what a visa officer reads to judge purpose and duration, so a forger edits them on a genuine seaman's book or builds a new one around them from a template.
How do I verify a seaman's book with the supplier?
Contact the airline, hotel or agency named on a seaman's book using details you found yourself, and ask them to confirm service record entries and the dates. If the supplier has no record of it, a seaman's book was almost certainly fabricated.
What does a forensic check on a seaman's book cost?
Pricing is per document, pay as you go, with no subscription or minimum. Checking a seaman's book costs the same whether you send one file or thousands.
Check a document
Upload a PDF or a photo of seaman's book. TamperCheck returns a risk score from 0 to 100 and marks the region that was edited, usually within seconds.
For developers, the API class is seamans_book. See the API and MCP documentation.