Hijacking requires money, equipment, weapons, planning,
experience and contacts with corrupt officials. The loot
per vessel ranges from $8 million to $200 million.
Pottengal Mukundan, Director of ICC's Commercial
Crime Services states in an IMB press release:
"(Piracy) typically involves a mother ship from which to
launch the attacks, a supply of automatic weapons, false
identity papers for the crew and vessel, fake cargo
documents, and a broker network to sell the stolen goods
illegally. Individual pirates don't have these resources.
Hijackings are the work of organized crime rings".
The IMB describes the aftermath of a typical hijacking:
"The Global Mars has probably been given a new name
and repainted. Armed with false registration papers and
bills of lading, the pirates - or more likely the mafia
bosses pulling the strings - will then try to dispose of their
booty. The vessel has probably put in to a port where the
false identity of vessel and cargo may escape detection.
Even when identified, the gangs have been known to bribe
local officials to allow them to sell the cargo and leave the
port".
Such a ship is often "recycled" a few times. It earns its
operators an average of $40-50 million per "cycle",
according to "The Economist". The pirates contract with
sellers or shipping agents to load it with a legitimate
consignment of goods or commodities. The sellers and
agents are unaware of the true identity of the ship, or of its
unsavory "owners/managers".
The pirates invariably produce an authentic vessel
registration certificate that they acquired from crooked
officials - and provide the sellers or agents with a bill of
lading. The payload is then sold to networks of traders in
stolen merchandise or to gullible buyers in a different port
of destination - and the ship is ready for yet another
round.
In January 2002, the Indonesian Navy has permanently
stationed six battleships in the Malacca Straits, three of
them off the coast of the secessionist region of Aceh. A
further 20-30 ships and 10 aircraft conduct daily patrols of
the treacherous traffic lane. Some 200-600 ships cross the
Straits daily. A mere 50 ships or so are boarded and
searched every month.
The Greek government has gunboats patrolling the 2
miles wide Corfu Channel, where yachts frequently fall
prey to Albanian pirates. Brazil has imposed an unpopular
anti-piracy inspection fee on berthing vessels and used the
proceeds to finance a SWAT team to protect ships and
their crews while in port. Both India and Thailand have
similar units.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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