[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Two planes seized in Somalia with Sh300 million in ransom money were modified without civil aviation authorisation to enable them drop cash to pirates, it was revealed on Tuesday.An official in the aviation sector said the planes based at the Wilson Airport in Nairobi were given special clearance before flying to Somalia on UN missions but ended up being used to drop money to ships hijacked by pirates.
He claimed the planes usually left Wilson airport in Nairobi on claims that they were undertaking humanitarian evacuations in Somalia under the UN operation in the Horn of Africa country.
He said the planes owned by a senior manager with an international agency in Nairobi had been involved in the operations for the past two years.
The planes are a Citation jet which had left with the ransom money from the Seychelles and a Cessna caravan single-engine which was to drop the money to pirates on the hijacked ships.
President of semi-autonomous state of Puntland Abdurahman Mohamed Farole denied his state had any role in the $3.6 million seized by security officers.
The cash was ransom for the release of two ships and their 56 crew members.
The $3.6 million was for Mv Yuan Xiang and Mv Suez, according to Mr Andrew Mwangura, the maritime editor of Somali Report, a publication that specialises in Somalia news.
Mv Suez was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden on August 2, last year, en route to Eritrea from Pakistain. Her crew members were six Indians, four Paks, four Sri Lankans and 13 Egyptians.
The Panama-flagged Mv Yuan Xiang was taken by pirates alongside her 29 Chinese crew on November 13, last year, 650 nautical miles East of Salalah, Oman.
Somalia Interior and Security minister Abdishakur Hassan Farah said six people, including the pilots, were being jugged.
He said three of those tossed in the clink carried UK passports, another an American passport while two have Kenyan identifications.
Kenya Civil Aviation Authority is yet to issue a statement on the ownership of the planes held in Somalia.
Somali authorities have, however, confirmed that the planes belong to an aviation company based at Wilson Airport.