© Blitz
Commenting on this book, Joshua Hammer wrote in The New York Times, "Bahadur has gone deep in exploring the causes of this seaborne crime wave, charting its explosive growth and humanizing the brigands who have eluded some of the world's most powerful navies . . . [He] captures the inner workings of Somali piracy in extraordinary detail . . . Bahadur seems to admire the pirates' audacity and resourcefulness, yet at the same time he avoids glamorizing them . . . Brave and exhaustively reported."
Giving description of the book, amazon.com wrote: "Somalia, on the tip of the Horn of Africa, has been inhabited as far back as 9,000 BC. Its history is as rich as the country is old. Caught up in a decades-long civil war, Somalia, along with Iraq and Afghanistan, has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Getting there from North America is a forty-five-hour, five-flight voyage through Frankfurt, Dubai, Djibouti, Bossaso [on the Gulf of Aden], and, finally, Galkayo. Somalia is a place where a government has been built out of anarchy.
"For centuries, stories of pirates have captured imaginations around the world. The recent bands of daring, ragtag pirates off the coast of Somalia, hijacking multimillion-dollar tankers owned by international shipping conglomerates, have brought the scourge of piracy into the modern era.
"The capture of the American-crewed cargo ship Maersk Alabama in April 2009, the first United States ship to be hijacked in almost two centuries, catapulted the Somali pirates onto prime-time news. Then, with the horrific killing by Somali pirates of four Americans, two of whom had built their dream yacht and were sailing around the world ["And now on to: Angkor Wat! And Burma!" they had written to friends], the United States Navy, Special Operation Forces, FBI, Justice Department, and the world's military forces were put on notice: the Somali seas were now the most perilous in the world.
"Jay Bahadur, a journalist who dared to make his way into the remote pirate havens of Africa's easternmost country and spend months infiltrating their lives, gives us the first close-up look at the hidden world of the pirates of war-ravaged Somalia.
"Bahadur's riveting narrative exposé - the first ever - looks at who these men are, how they live, the forces that created piracy in Somalia, how the pirates spend the ransom money, how they deal with their hostages. Bahadur makes sense of the complex and fraught regional politics, the history of Somalia and the self-governing region of Puntland [an autonomous region in northeast Somalia], and the various catastrophic occurrences that have shaped their pirate destinies. The book looks at how the unrecognized mini-state of Puntland is dealing with the rise - and increasing sophistication - of piracy and how, through legal and military action, other nations, international shippers, the United Nations, and various international bodies are attempting to cope with the present danger and growing pirate crisis."
Piracy off the coast of Somalia has been a threat to international shipping since the second phase of the Somali Civil War in the early 21st century. Since 2005, many international organizations, including the International Maritime Organization and the World Food Program, have expressed concern over the rise in acts of piracy. Piracy has impeded the delivery of shipments and increased shipping expenses, costing an estimated £10 billion a year in global trade. According to the German Institute for Economic Research [DIW], a veritable industry of profiteers has also risen around the piracy. Insurance companies, in particular, have profited from the pirate attacks, as insurance premiums have increased significantly.
A United Nations report and several news sources have suggested that piracy off the coast of Somalia is caused in part by illegal fishing. According to the DIW and the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, the dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters by foreign vessels has also severely constrained the ability of local fishermen to earn a living and forced many to turn to piracy instead. Other articles allege that 70 percent of the local coastal communities "strongly support the piracy as a form of national defense of the country's territorial waters", and that the pirates believe they are protecting their fishing grounds and exacting justice and compensation for the marine resources stolen. Some pirates have suggested that, in the absence of an effective national coast guard following the outbreak of the Somali Civil War and the subsequent disintegration of the Armed Forces, they became pirates in order to protect their waters. This belief is also reflected in the names taken on by some of the pirate networks, such as the National Volunteer Coast Guard [NVCG]. However, as piracy has become substantially more lucrative in recent years, some reports are suggesting that financial gain is now the primary motive for Somali pirates.
Combined Task Force 150, a multinational coalition task force, took on the role of fighting Somali piracy by establishing a Maritime Security Patrol Area [MSPA] within the Gulf of Aden. The increasing threat posed by piracy has also caused concern in India since most of its shipping trade routes pass through the Gulf of Aden. The Indian Navy responded to these concerns by deploying a warship in the region on 23 October 2008. In September 2008, Russia announced that it too would join international efforts to combat piracy. Some reports have also accused certain government officials in Somalia of complicity with the pirates, with authorities from the Galmudug administration in the north-central Hobyo district reportedly attempting to use pirate gangs as a bulwark against Islamist insurgents from the nation's southern conflict zones. However, according to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, both the former and current administrations of the autonomous Puntland region in northeastern Somalia appear to be more actively involved in combating piracy. The latter measures include on-land raids on pirate hideouts, and the construction of a new naval base in conjunction with Saracen International, a UK-based security company. By the first half of 2010, these increased policing efforts by Somali government authorities on land and international naval vessels at sea reportedly contributed to a drop in pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden from 86 a year prior to 33, forcing pirates to shift attention to other areas such as the Somali Basin and the wider Indian Ocean. As of 15 August 2011, Somali pirates were holding at least 17 ships with an estimated 378 hostages.
History of the piracy:
During the Siad Barre regime, Somalia received aid from Denmark, Great Britain, Iraq, Japan, Sweden, USSR and West Germany to develop its fishing industry. Cooperatives had fixed prices for their catch, which was often exported due to the low demand for seafood in Somalia. Aid money improved the ships and supported the construction of maintenance facilities. After the fall of the Barre regime, the income from fishing decreased due to the Somali Civil War.
With the collapse of the central government, the Somali Navy ceased to exist as a fighting force. With Somali waters undefended, foreign fishing trawlers began illegally fishing in Somali waters, and ships from big companies began dumping waste off Somalia, killing fish. This led to the erosion of the fish stock. Local fishermen started to band together to protect their resources. Due to the clan-based nature of Somali society, the lack of a central government and Somalia's strategic location at the Horn of Africa, conditions were ripe for the growth of piracy in the early 1990s.
Precise data on the current economic situation in Somalia is scarce but with an estimated per capita GDP of US$600 per year, it remains one of the world's poorest countries. Millions of Somalis depend on food aid and in 2008, according to the World Bank, as much as 73 percent of the population lived on a daily income below US$2. These factors and the lucrative success of many hijacking operations have drawn a number of young men toward gangs of pirates, whose wealth and strength often make them part of the local social and economic elite. Abdi Farah Juha who lives in Garoowe [100 miles from the sea] told the BBC, "They have money; they have power and they are getting stronger by the day. They wed the most beautiful girls; they are building big houses; they have new cars; new guns."
Some pirates are former fishermen, whose livelihoods were hurt by foreign ships illegally fishing in Somali waters. Most of the pirates, observers say, are not former fishermen. After seeing the profitability of piracy, since ransoms are usually paid, warlords began to facilitate pirate activities, splitting the profits with the pirates. Pirates even attack ships carrying humanitarian aid. In most of the hijackings, the bandits have not harmed their prisoners.
The Transitional Federal Government has made some efforts to combat piracy, occasionally allowing foreign naval vessels into Somali territorial waters. However, more often than not, foreign naval vessels chasing pirates were forced to break off when the pirates entered Somali territorial waters. To counter this, in 2008 [and renewed each year since then] the UN passed a resolution allowing international warships to pursue pirates into Somali territorial waters. On the advice of lawyers, the Royal Navy and other international naval forces have often released suspected pirates that they have captured because, although the men are frequently armed, they have not been caught engaging in acts of piracy and have thus not technically committed a crime. The government of Puntland has made more progress in combating piracy, evident in recent interventions.
Somali pirates have attacked hundreds of vessels in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean region, though most attacks do not result in a successful hijacking. In 2008, there were 111 attacks which included 42 successful hijackings. However, this is only a fraction of the up to 30,000 merchant vessels which pass through that area. The rate of attacks in January and February 2009 was about 10 times higher than during the same period in 2008 and "there have been almost daily attacks in March", with 79 attacks, 21 successful, by mid April. Most of these attacks occur in the Gulf of Aden but the Somali pirates have been increasing their range and have started attacking ships as far south as off the coast of Kenya in the Indian Ocean. Below are some notable pirate events which have garnered significant media coverage since 2007. On 28 May 2007, a Chinese sailor was killed by the pirates because the ship's owners failed to meet their ransom demand. In 2010, they captured a Bangladesh sea going vessel named Jahan Moni. Later the crews were released against significant amount of ransom.
On 5 October 2008, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1838 calling on nations with vessels in the area to apply military force to repress the acts of piracy. At the 101st council of the International Maritime Organization, India called for a United Nations peacekeeping force under unified command to tackle piracy off Somalia. [There has been a general and complete arms embargo against Somalia since 1992.]
On 21 November 2008, BBC News reported that the Indian Navy had received United Nations approval to enter Somali waters to combat piracy.
In November 2008, Somali pirates began hijacking ships well outside the Gulf of Aden, perhaps targeting ships headed for the port of Mombasa, Kenya. The frequency and sophistication of the attacks also increased around this time, as did the size of vessels being targeted. Large cargo ships, oil and chemical tankers on international voyages became the new targets of choice for the Somali hijackers. This is in stark contrast to the pirate attacks which were once frequent in the Strait of Malacca, another strategically important waterway for international trade, which were according to maritime security expert Catherine Zara Raymond, generally directed against "smaller, more vulnerable vessels carrying trade across the Straits or employed in the coastal trade on either side of the Straits."
On 19 November 2008, the Indian Navy warship INS Tabar sank a suspected pirate mothership. Later, it was claimed to be a Thai trawler being hijacked by pirates. The Indian Navy later defended its actions by stating that they were fired upon first.
On 8 April 2009, four Somali pirates seized the Maersk Alabama 240 nautical miles [440 km; 280 mi] southeast of the Somalia port city of Ely. The ship was carrying 17,000 metric tons of cargo, of which 5,000 metric tons were relief supplies bound for Somalia, Uganda, and Kenya. On 12 April 2009, United States Navy SEAL snipers killed the three pirates that were holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage aboard a lifeboat from the Maersk Alabama after determining that Captain Phillips' life was in immediate danger. A fourth pirate, Abdul Wali Muse, surrendered and was taken into custody. On May 18, a federal grand jury in New York returned a ten-count indictment against him.
On 20 April 2009, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented on the capture and release of 7 Somali pirates by Dutch Naval forces who were on a NATO mission. After an attack on the Handytankers Magic, a petroleum tanker, the Dutch frigate De Zeven Provinciën tracked the pirates back to a pirate "mother ship" and captured them. They confiscated the pirates' weapons and freed 20 Yemeni fishermen whom the pirates had kidnapped and who had been forced to sail the pirate "mother ship". Since the Dutch Naval Forces were part of a NATO exercise, but not on an EU mission, they lacked legal jurisdiction to keep the pirates so they released them. Clinton stated that this action "sends the wrong signal" and that additional coordination was needed among nations.
On 23 April 2009, international donors pledged over $250 million for Somalia, including $134 million to increase the African Union peacekeeping mission from 4,350 troops to 8,000 troops and $34 million for Somali security forces. Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon told delegates at a donors' conference sponsored by the U.N. that "Piracy is a symptom of anarchy and insecurity on the ground", and that "More security on the ground will make less piracy on the seas." Somali President Sharif Ahmed pledged at the conference that he would fight piracy and to loud applause said that "It is our duty to pursue these criminals not only on the high seas, but also on terra firma", The Somali government has not gone after pirates because pirate leaders currently have more power than the government, It has been estimated by piracy experts that in 2008 the pirates gained about $80 million through ransom payments.
On 2 May 2009, Somali pirates captured the MV Ariana with its 24 Ukrainian crew. The ship was released on 10 December 2009 after a ransom of almost US$3,000,000 was paid.
On 8 November 2009, Somali pirates threatened that a kidnapped British couple, the Chandlers, would be "punished" if a German warship did not release seven pirates. Omer, one of the pirates holding the British couple, claimed the seven men were fishermen, but a European Union Naval Force spokesman stated they were captured as they fired AK-47 assault rifles at a French fishing vessel. The Chandlers were released on 14 November 2010 after 388 days of captivity. At least two ransom payments, reportedly over GBP 500 000, had been made.
In April 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] alluded to possible covert and overt action against the pirates. CIA officials had been publicly warning of this potential threat for months. In a Harpers Magazine article, a CIA official said, "We need to deal with this problem from the beach side, in concert with the ocean side, but we don't have an embassy in Somalia and limited, ineffective intelligence operations. We need to work in Somalia and in Lebanon, where a lot of the ransom money has changed hands. But our operations in Lebanon are a joke, and we have no presence at all in Somalia."
On 11 May 2010 Somali pirates seized a Bulgarian-flagged ship in the Gulf of Aden. The Panega, with 15 Bulgarian crew members aboard, was en route from the Red Sea to India or Pakistan. This was the first such hijacking of a Bulgarian-flagged ship. On 12 May 2010, Athens announced that Somali pirates have seized a Greek vessel in the Gulf of Aden with at least 24 people on board, including two Greek citizens and some Filipinos. The vessel, sailing under the Liberian flag, was transporting iron from Ukraine to China.
On 14 January 2011, while speaking to reporters, Commodore Michiel Hijmans of the Royal Netherlands Navy stated that the use of hijacked vessels in more recent hijackings had led to increased range of pirating activities, as well as difficulty to actively thwart future events due to the use of kidnapped sailors as human shields.
On 15 January 2011 thirteen Somali pirates seized the Samho Jewelry, a Maltese-flagged chemical carrier operated by Samho Shipping, 650 km southeast of Muscat. The Republic of Korea Navy destroyer Choi Young shadowed the Samho Jewlry for several days. In the early morning of 21 January 2011, 25 ROK Navy SEALs on small boats launched from the Choi Young boarded the Samho Jewelry while the Choi Youngs Westland Super Lynx provided covering fire. Eight pirates were killed and five captured in the operation; the crew of 21 was freed with the Captain suffering a gunshot wound to the stomach.
On 28 January 2011, an Indian Coast Guard aircraft while responding to a distress call from the CMA CGM Verdi, located two skiffs attempting a piracy attack near Lakshadweep. Seeing the aircraft, the skiffs immediately aborted their piracy attempt and dashed towards the mother vessel, MV Prantalay 14 - a hijacked Thai trawler, which hurriedly hoisted the two skiffs on board and moved westward. The Indian Navy deployed the INS Cankarso which located and engaged the mothership 100 nautical miles north of the Minicoy Island. Ten pirates where killed while 15 were apprehended and 20 Thai and Myanmarese fishermen being held aboard the ship as hostages were rescued.
Within a week of its previous success, the Indian Navy captured another hijacked Thai trawler, MV Prantalay 11 and captured 28 pirates aboard in an operation undertaken by the INS Tir purusuant to receiving information that a Greek merchant ship had been attacked by pirates on board high-speed boats, although it had managed to avoid capture. When INS Tir ordered the pirate ship to stop and be boarded for inspection, it was fired upon. The INS Tir returned fire in which 3 pirates were injured and caused the pirates to raise a white flag indicating their surrender. The INS Tir subsequently joined by CGS Samar of the Indian Coast Guard. Officials from the Indian Navy reported that a total of 52 men were apprehended, but that 24 are suspected to be Thai fishermen who were hostages of the 28 African pirates.
In late February 2011, piracy targeting smaller yachts and collecting ransom made headlines when four Americans were killed aboard their vessel by their captors, while a military ship shadowed them. On 24 February 2011, Danish family on a yacht was captured by pirates.
In March 2011, the Indian Navy intercepted a pirate mother vessel 600 nautical miles west of the Indian coast in the Arabian Sea on Monday and rescued 13 hostages. Sixty-one pirates have also been caught in the operation carried out by Navy's INS Kalpeni.
In late March 2011, Indian Navy seized 16 Somali pirates after a three-hour-long battle in the Arabian Sea, The navy also rescued 16 crew members of a hijacked Iranian ship west of the Lakshadweep Islands. The crew included 12 Iranians and four Pakistanis.
In early May 2011, Russian Special Forces retook a Russian oil tanker that had been hijacked by 11 pirates. One died in the assault, and a week later Russian military official reported that the remainder were freed due to weaknesses in international law but died before reaching the Somali coast. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had announced the day the ship was retaken that "We'll have to do what our forefathers did when they met the pirates" until a suitable way of prosecuting them was available.
Profile of the Somali pirates:
Many pirates are 20 - 35 years old and come from the region of Puntland, in northeastern Somalia. The East African Seafarer's Assoctioan estimates that there are at least five pirate gangs and a total of 1,000 armed men. According to a BBC report, the pirates can be divided into three main categories:
Local Somali fishermen, considered the brains of the pirates' operations due to their skill and knowledge of the sea. Many think that foreign boats have no right to cruise next to the shore and destroy their boats.
Ex-militiamen, who previously fought for the local clan warlords, or ex-military from the former Barre government used as the muscle.
Technical experts, who operate equipment such as GPS devices.
According to globalsecurity.org, there are four main groups operating off the Somali coast. The National Volunteer Coast Guard, commanded by Garaad Mohamed, is said to specialize in intercepting small boats and fishing vessels around Kismayo on the southern coast. The Marka group, under the command of Yusuf Mohammed Siad Inda'ade, is made up of several scattered and less organized groups operating around the town of Marka. The third significant pirate group is composed of traditional Somali fishermen operating around Puntland and referred to as the Puntland Group. The last set are the Somali Marines, reputed to be the most powerful and sophisticated of the pirate groups with a military structure, a fleet admiral, admiral, vice-admiral and a head of financial operations.
The conduct of a typical pirate attack has been analyzed and shows that while attacks can be expected at any time, most occur during the day, often in the early hours. They may involve two or more skiffs that can reach speeds of up to 25 knots. With the help of motherships that include captured fishing and merchant vessels the operating range of the skiffs has been increased far into the Indian Ocean. An attacked vessel is approached from quarter or stern; RPGs and small arms are used to intimidate the operator to slow down and allow boarding. Light ladders are brought along to climb aboard. Pirates then will try and get control of the bridge to take operational control of the vessel.
The closest Somali term for 'pirate' is burcad badeed, which means "ocean robber". But the pirates themselves prefer to be called badaadinta badah, or "saviours of the sea", or in the English "coastguard", as they claimed that their action was for "protection of his sea, the native [Somali] waters".
Source of weapon and funding of the Somali pirates:
The pirates get most of their weapons from Yemen, but a significant amount come from Mogadishu, Somalia's capital. Weapons dealers in the capital receive a deposit from a hawala dealer on behalf of the pirates and the weapons are then driven to Puntland where the pirates pay the balance. Various photographs of pirates in situ indicate that their weapons are predominantly AKMs, RPG-7s, AK47s and semi-automatic pistols such as the TT-30. Additionally, given the particular origin of their weaponry, they are likely to have hand grenades such as the RGD-5 or F1. Al Qaeda reportedly funded pirates with cash to purchase weapons.
Comment: If true, and given the ties of al-Qaeda™ to western intelligence agencies, one wonders what role these intelligence agencies might have in these pirate activities as well?
The funding of piracy operations is now structured in a stock exchange, with investors buying and selling shares in upcoming attacks in a bourse in Harardhere. Pirates say ransom money is paid in large denomination United States Dollar bills. It is delivered to them in burlap sacks which are either dropped from helicopters or cased in waterproof suitcases loaded onto tiny skiffs. Ransom money has also been delivered to pirates via parachute, as happened in January 2009 when an orange container with US$3 million cash inside was dropped onto the deck of the supertanker MV Sirius Star to secure the release of ship and crew. To authenticate the banknotes, pirates use currency-counting machines, the same technology used at foreign exchange bureaus worldwide. According to one pirate, these machines are, in turn, purchased from business connections in Dubai, Djibouti, and other areas. Hostages seized by the pirates usually have to wait 45 days or more for the ships' owners to pay the ransom and secure their release.
Somali pirates allegedly get help from the Somali diaspora. Somali expatriates, including reputedly some among the 200,000 Somalis living in Canada, offer funds, equipment and information.
The purpose of piracy is to get ransom money for release of the crew, ship, and cargo. Pirates' income from ransom has been estimated to be about 39 million euro [about US$58 million] in 2009 and US$238 million in 2010. However, indirect costs of piracy are much higher and estimated to be between US$7 to 12 billion as they also include insurance, naval support, legal proceedings, re-routing of slower ships, and individual protective steps taken by ship-owners. Further, piracy in Somalia leads to a decrease of revenue for Egypt as fewer ships use the Suez canal [estimated loss of about US$642 million], impedes trade with a number of countries such as Kenya and Yemen, and is detrimental to tourism and fishing in the Seychelles.
A 2011 report published by Geopolicity Inc, investigated the causes and consequences of international piracy, with a particular focus on piracy emanating from Somalia. The report asserts that piracy is an emerging market in its own right, valued at between US$4.9-8.3 billion in 2010 alone, and it establishes, for the first time, an economic model for assessing the costs and benefits of international piracy. This model provides a comprehensive, independent framework of trend analysis, whilst also highlighting where the greatest rates of return on international counter pirate investment and policy are to be found across what Geopolicity term the 'Pirate Value Chain.' The report states that the number of pirates could double by 2016, increasing by 400 each year. This is being fuelled by attractive financial incentives with Somali pirates earning up to US$79,000/year; equating to almost 150 times their country's national average wage.
Most beneficiary of the piracy threat:
According to the German Institute for Economic Research [DIW], a veritable industry of profiteers has also risen around the piracy. Insurance companies, in particular, have profited from the pirate attacks, as insurance premiums have increased exponentially. To facilitate the continuation of such monetary gains, insurance firms have actively discouraged ship owners from taking security precautions. For their part, shipping companies have often rebuffed naval guidelines on how best to prevent pirate attacks so as to cut down on costs. Ship crews have also been reluctant to repel the pirates on account of their low wages and inequitable work contracts. In addition, security contractors, including the German arms industry, have profited from the phenomenon.
Self defense of the sailors:
The third volume of the handbook: Best Management Practices to Deter Piracy off the Coast of Somalia and in the Arabian Sea Area [known as BMP3] is the current authoritative guide for merchant ships on self-defense against pirates. The guide is issued and updated by a consortium of interested international shipping and trading organizations including the EU, NATO and the International Maritime Bureau. It is distributed primarily by the Maritime Security Centre - Horn of Africa [MSCHOA] - the planning and coordination authority for EU naval forces [EUNAVFOR]. BMP3 encourages vessels to register their voyages through the region with MSCHOA as this registration is a key component of the operation of the International Recommended Transit Corridor [IRTC] [the navy patrolled route through the Gulf of Aden]. BMP3 also contains a chapter entitled "Self-Protective Measures" which lays out a list of steps a merchant vessel can take on its own to make itself less of a target to pirates and make it better able to repel an attack if one occurs. This list includes doing thing like ringing the deck of the ship with razor wire, rigging fire-hoses to spray sea-water over the side of the ship [to hinder boarding], having a distinctive pirate alarm, hardening the bridge against gunfire and creating a "citadel" where the crew can retreat in the event pirates get on board. Other unofficial self-defense measures that can be found on merchant vessels include the setting up of mannequins posing as armed guards or firing flares at the pirates.
Though it varies by country, generally peacetime law in the 20th and 21st centuries has not allowed merchant vessels to carry weapons. As a response to the rise in modern piracy, however, the U.S. Government changed its rules so that it is now possible for US flagged vessels to embark a team of armed private security guards. Other countries and organizations have similarly followed suit. This has given birth to a new breed of private security companies who provide training and protection for crew members and cargo and have proved effective in countering pirate attacks. The USCG leaves it to ship owners' discretion to determine if those guards will be armed.
Claim of the Somali pirates:
The Somali pirates justify their illegal activities saying they were protecting their coastline from foreign fishing. Many of the original pirates are former fisherman, though now the larger segments of the pirates are non-fishermen, and rather professional criminals.
Recommendations:
Experts opine that, in addition to satellite surveillance of the pirate-affected maritime zones, special drone attacks should be conducted on coastal bases of the Somali pirates on an extensive manner. Moreover, the source of arms of the piracy racket should be identified and stopped. On the other hand, those Somali nationals living in Canada with connection with the piracy racket should be traced through due intelligence deployment. In Addition, the sailors should be given due physical training as well as training of operating weapons. The piracy affected maritime zones should be cleared without delay, thus saving international shipping industry from bearing huge financial loss every year. It wont be difficult for the international community to launch an unified offensive on the Somali piracy racket [who are not numbered more than 2-3 thousand] in completely eliminating them as well necessary intelligence method should be applied to locate the piracy funds around the world. As the pirates received cash US dollars, one of the ways of tracking the channel of these pirate money should be to keep records of the currency note serial numbers. The Somali pirates must be maintaining any network for transferring the ransom money to some safer places or invest the same in stock markets in some countries.
Latest information on Somali pirates and video, pirate photographs etc are available on a website named somalipirates.com
Life sometimes imitates art, the "mysterious" nation/mafia outfit sponsoring the farce of "somali pirates" is the International Super Terrorist Pirate State aka "The Base" modelled on a fictional organisation/Island in James Bond novels called SPECTRE (Slavery - Pornography - Extortion - Counter Intelligence- Terrorism - Revenge - Extremism). With the organisation's historical active role in African diamond smuggling, gun/drug running, human trafficking, rebel armies (mercenaries)...... the issue is the control of the Red Sea. [Link][Link][Link][Link][Link]