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2019-12-23 Africa Subsaharan
Pirates Now Prefer Human Hostages Over Ships and Cargo
[Bloomberg] ...But the word from the high seas hasn’t been calming.

There have been two large-scale acts of piracy in the waters off West Africa this month alone. On Dec. 3, 19 people were taken hostage when hijackers attacked the oil tanker Nave Constellation as it was anchored off the coast of Nigeria. In the first nine months of 2019, more than 100 ships around the world were assaulted by pirates, with most of the hostage-taking occurring in the broad Gulf of Guinea—shared by Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Togo, and Cameroon. According to the International Maritime Bureau, about 86% of the incidents worldwide took place there. The hijacking of the Nave Constellation is just one of the latest attacks, says Max Williams, chief operation officer of security firm Africa Risk Compliance Ltd. “There’s been a spate in the last 40 days of quite significant maritime security incidents in the area.”

In the first nine months of 2019, more than 100 ships around the world were assaulted by pirates, with 86% of the hostage-taking occurring in the broad Gulf of Guinea—shared by Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Togo, and Cameroon.
“Piracy is a business,” says John Steed of the Hostage Support Partnership. “And the investors are still putting money in the business.” He adds, “As piracy is reduced in East Africa, piracy in West Africa and Southeast Asia has increased.” It feeds off the enormous amount of global ship traffic, with 11 billion tons shipped internationally in 2018. Says James Gosling, a consultant for Holman Fenwick Willan’s London office who was awarded an Order of the British Empire by the Queen for his work on releasing hostages: “If you ask the average person in this country where their fridge comes from they would just say the supermarket. They don’t realize we import 90% of our stuff.”

Continued from Page 2



Violent attacks targeting crew rather than the ship or its cargo are on the rise. Munro Anderson, a partner at maritime security firm Dryad Global, says pirates in West Africa have decided that “actually it’s more worthwhile to conduct high-risk operations where you target a vessel, you kidnap the crew, and you get a high payoff.’’ Anderson says that Dryad has seen negotiation payments ranging from around $18,000 to half a million dollars. Piracy in West Africa—and defending against it—cost an estimated $818.1 million in 2017, with contracted maritime security the biggest expense, according to Oceans Beyond Piracy, a program commissioned by One Earth Future.

The time hostages are held as prisoners varies drastically across the world. Maritime security firm Ambrey expects the Nave Constellation seafarers to remain hostages for around 28 days. In Somalia, victims have been held for more than four years, says Chirag Bahri, a regional director for the International Seafarers’ Welfare and Assistance Network. Three Iranian men, captured in 2015 from the FV Siraj, are still prisoners there, he says. Steed, who worked to free hostages from the FV Siraj, says, “because these are Iranians, nobody really cares.” His organization did recently manage to free one Iranian FV Siraj crew member. The reason: His health was rapidly deteriorating and was losing value as a hostage for ransom.

The experience of Rohan Ruparelia, a merchant seaman from Mumbai was a mixture of efficiency, comedy, and terror. When the attack started, he was standing on the navigation bridge at the top of the Panamanian-flagged Maximus, learning how to navigate with the third officer. The crew had been trading diesel in the region, and the ship was drifting in waters off of Ivory Coast that were marked safe at the time by maritime organizations. The hijackers were “very, very organized,” he recalls. “They knew what they were doing.”

They descended on the ship and gunshots ripped through the air. He and the third officer ran to warn the other sailors to head for the “citadel,” a safe place at the heart of the ship which, once locked, would keep anyone out. Thirteen men managed to get inside, but five were captured by the pirates, who then forced the others in the citadel to surrender. Within seven days the pirates had repainted the tanker’s name and given false information to the Togo Navy, whose waters the ship had traveled to in the meantime.

Things began to fall apart when the ship passed into Nigerian jurisdiction. That country sent a warship to shadow the tanker. At that point, some of the hijackers decided to take Ruparelia and one of his Pakistani crewmates off the ship and attempt to get back to shore in a skiff. As Rohan watched his ship sail away from him, he laughed. He was floating somewhere in the Gulf of Guinea between Ghana and Nigeria, crammed into a small row boat between nine other men, eight of whom were pirates. None of them knew how to get to shore, or even in which direction the shore was. “I was actually laughing at the turn of events,” Ruparelia says.

The Nigerian Navy boarded the Maximus and freed the captured crew after an exchange of gunfire with the pirates stayed on the ship. Meanwhile, Ruparelia, his colleague, and the other pirates were at sea for five days without food or water before landing on the coast of Nigeria. Foraging through trash for food, the hostages and hostage-takers asked for shelter at the first house they came to. One of the owners, suspecting foul play, left and came back with what Ruparelia describes as the local mafia. Very quickly, all 10 men were prisoners. “I mean the ones who kidnapped us got kidnapped; it was funny,” he says.

As it turned out, the original pirates were impossible to ransom for money and Ruparelia and his colleague found themselves the sole captives, falling into the secondary market for pirate hostages. They were taken to the house of “John,” the leader of the group that had wrested them from their first captors. Next to John’s house was a room with no windows where the sailors would be imprisoned. Then, the hostage negotiations began.

Negotiations with pirates are “all very much the same,” says Gosling. “They ask for a ridiculous price and depending on your assets you have to start lower and eventually you agree somewhere in the middle—and unfortunately you have to bargain, even though people’s lives are at stake. Otherwise it never ends.”

Every day, Ruparelia was let out of the room to speak on the phone to his operations manager, employed by the shipowner, to attempt to negotiate a ransom. The rest of his time was spent in darkness. Each day, the men were given a bowl of rice to share. Each day, too, they experienced yelled threats or bullets flying at their feet. Then, abruptly, the phone calls stopped. For days the men heard nothing. John had gone into town, and in the meantime the violence against the prisoners increased. “For those four days we were at the mercy of his men, and they did not care how they hit us.”

John returned one morning and took the two prisoners into his house. He asked them if they would like a chocolate drink. Ruparelia became very afraid. Then, John asked him what he would like for breakfast. “He actually made me an omelet. He did. Then he told me that ‘today is a good day. I am going to be paid, and you are going to be freed.’”
Posted by trailing wife 2019-12-23 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11137 views ]  Top
 File under: Pirates 

#1 ....A few of these groups find themselves unpaid and on the wrong end of a visit from the SEALs or SAS, and I suspect it would slow down PDQ.

Mike
Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2019-12-23 03:57||   2019-12-23 03:57|| Front Page Top

#2  unpaid and on the wrong end of a visit from the SEALs or SAS

As the Freakonomics boys say, economics is all about incentives.

This might be a opportunity for private military contractors, given government reluctance and lack of capability to get their hands dirty. Lots of whinging from the ICC, Amnesia International and rest of the usual suspects, but all this stuff (piracy and it's consequences) happens in rather lawless areas. Hard boys, hard consequences. Think sea-going RAB.
Posted by SteveS 2019-12-23 06:42||   2019-12-23 06:42|| Front Page Top

#3 Easier to transport and maintain and the pay is almost as good.

I would assign some SEAL and Ranger kill teams to this problem.
Posted by DarthVader 2019-12-23 11:24||   2019-12-23 11:24|| Front Page Top

#4 Bait ship with ebola carrying vectors.
Posted by Procopius2k 2019-12-23 11:56||   2019-12-23 11:56|| Front Page Top

#5 Clandestine prison ship, rotating crews. She never docks. Always refueled and resupplied at sea.

You can board her, but you can never leave.
Posted by Besoeker 2019-12-23 11:59||   2019-12-23 11:59|| Front Page Top

#6 Leave as shark food.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2019-12-23 16:58||   2019-12-23 16:58|| Front Page Top

#7 Pirates are the enemies of all mankind, the original outlaws. Shoot, shovel, and shut up.
Posted by Rob Crawford 2019-12-23 17:12||   2019-12-23 17:12|| Front Page Top

#8 ..the original 'corporate raiders'.
Posted by Procopius2k 2019-12-23 17:57||   2019-12-23 17:57|| Front Page Top

#9 
I heard from a marcos buddy that some naval vessels and illegally armed merchants almost always destroy them whenever they can. A lot of dead pirates in the oceans, with Indian/Chinese/Sri Lankan/New Zealand bullets in 'em. Naturally they don't report them. Who wants a Zulu chief or some Kenyan tribal in a suit at the UN seat sneering down at them for saving their own ship ?

Periodic surgical drone strikes on suspicious vessels between the gulf of Aden and Socotra might be good ? What could they do, the somalis - take you to the ICJ ? Tell the soddy's to claim it's their drones.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-12-23 18:01||   2019-12-23 18:01|| Front Page Top

#10 “As piracy is reduced in East Africa, piracy in West Africa and Southeast Asia has increased.”

It’s not Somalia, anymore, Dron66046. Since you report that armed self defense has worked so well on that side of things, it’s time for shippers passing the west coast of Africa to adopt proven methods.
Posted by trailing wife 2019-12-23 18:47||   2019-12-23 18:47|| Front Page Top

#11 Silly me, TW. Behaving like a twitterer, didn't even read the full thing and went off. I'll consult an idle navy guy right away.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-12-23 19:17||   2019-12-23 19:17|| Front Page Top

#12 Responding to something half read is a general problem, dear Dron66046, for which I’ve had to apologize far more often than I am comfortable admitting.
Posted by trailing wife 2019-12-23 19:31||   2019-12-23 19:31|| Front Page Top

#13 My friend tells me nothing short of regime change and actually accountable governments in Nigeria will help. But he's a navy man, a bloody rubber duck collecting Yatch golfer, what does he know ? I'm for napalming several acres in the Niger delta, wipe off the MEND and the crazies.
Also that we shamefully paid $2 million recently for some of our kidnapped sailors ! That and China is seeking to militarily secure a port of Conakry in Guinea, and has a $150 million investment in port Lekki, nigeria with advance payments for safe passage of materiel to everyone from officials to many pirate cartels who kidnap people.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-12-23 19:44||   2019-12-23 19:44|| Front Page Top

#14 Somehow I don't like the idea of Chinese military floats in the region.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-12-23 19:47||   2019-12-23 19:47|| Front Page Top

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