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I'm just guessing the more likely than not, the ships are indirectly owned, and you go through several layers of bureaucracies in multiple countries. For example, the ship may be flagged in Liberia with one person (or corporation) listed as the owner in Liberian records. Liberia being Liberia, the money is more important than anything else so people may be bribed to 'modify' this or that registration in order to confuse anyone who inquires. The owners, meanwhile, aren't neccessarily based in Liberia. So you may have a Nigerian corporation owning a ship lagged in Liberia. This means that you have a whole new bureaucracy with which to launder your ship's indentification. Corporations that own the Liberian-flagged vessels may be based in Nigeria, but the shareholders can be anywhere. Add to that the fact that some of these folks- Usama for one- have multiple identities and even stolen identities, even more developed than those New York residents who own Florida houses and cars who vote in both New York and Fort Lauderdale. Then you have to throw in leasing... where ships could be flagged in Liberia, owned by a corporation based in Nigeria, which has leased the ship (or part of the cargo space) to yet another corporation, which is headquartered in Qatar, and which in turn has subletted cargo space to a company out of Cyprus. In amid all of those shareholders could be people acting as assistants who each own a block of shares, but who actually have a relationship to bin Laden by blood or by loyalty... but who do not themselves have anything in their background which would set off alarms. It's not easy mucking through the paper trails.