Losing freighters and mining ships

[AVN]

I'm losing freighters and mining ships. And I don't know how.

I am not at war. I even haven't been at war at all in this game.
I have all messages turned on, but I haven't seen a message that a freighter or mining ship was under attack of a space creature. And I'm friendly with most of the pirates. I'm paying them some protection money. And they haven't attacked me in this game.
So I'm wondering if it's possible that they are stealing my ships, without the game giving me any notification. Or is there another explanation for my loss of private ships ?

[Bingeling]

It could be that the privates retire them. I do not think they could be stealing them without triggering an "attacked" message (if you have those on).

You can periodically drop by the ship list, freighters, and sort by order. And see if retire orders pop up. I believe the reason for retirement can be both "no more work, obsolete", and possibly also "we are broke" if you somehow manage to bankrupt the civilians.