Today’s Strategic Studies Group meeting was unusually interesting. Lieutenant Commander Nigel JF Dawson was speaking about contemporary piracy and gave me specific permission to discuss it here a little. Basically, there are two hotspots of piracy in the world today: off the coast of Somalia and in the Malacca Strait. The latter waterway carries about 60% of world trade, including all the oil used by Japan and China.
Apparently, there are two major types of piracy happening in Southeast Asia. The first is simple enough: unsophisticated robbery of ships by individuals with few weapons and little organization. The second is much more dramatic: the wholesale capture of ships. Organized gangs steal whole oil tankers, repaint them, produce fake documentation for them, sell the cargo, and then sell or scrap the ships themselves. In the Malacca region, the unsophisticated kind of piracy is the norm south of the third parallel, while the region to the north involves mostly the larger scale sort. The character of piracy off the African coast was less thoroughly discussed. I have heard of an incident where the Tamil Tigers stole a ship containing a consignment of munitions for the Sri Lankan government.
A Piracy Reporting Centre in Malaysia apparently keeps track of all this, though only about one in four incidents are actually reported. I suppose it would make the clients of shipping companies nervous to learn that their cargo faces such perils.
It seems like the easiest way to target the problem would be to deal with the on-shore networks that support the trade. In particular, there must be ways to combat the wholesale expropriation and re-titling of ships. A global registry seems as though it would have a decent chance of being useful, at least when it comes to trade in huge oil and gas tankers.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Just think how many people out there are watching illegally pirated copies of the forthcoming Pirates of the Caribbean movie, on DVD players stolen by actual pirates and re-sold through criminal networks.
But do pirates reduce surface sea temperatures? See http://www.scq.ubc.ca/p=236 . If so, I’m prepared (at great personal sacrifice, I might add) to take up piracy in order to avert hurricanes.
Sarah,
Is this the image you meant to link?
It is from this page.
I may have lost a question mark in the original attempt - http://www.scq.ubc.ca/?p=236 . The article references the original graph but also provides a working hypothesis to explain the correlation.
It seems to me that the problem with piracy is corruption, certainly there is no way to produce all these false documents, and have the ships repainted, without considerable corruption. Thus, it would seem that the solution should be to set up this kind of worldwide registry, but strategically run by people who have little or no incentive in becoming caught up in the corruption themselves.
The simplest solution to this, and all problems of corruption, is over 2000 years old - the elimination of private property for the ruling class.
Tristan,
I asked about on-shore support for the ship stealing operations. I was told that they get repainted at sea and that they make false documents in the name of a similar ship in a very different part of the world. Then, they sell the cargo to a port in what seems like a legitimate transaction.
the elimination of private property for the ruling class
Socialist societies have been among the most corrupt ones ever.
On Canadian ports and organized crime
“An analyst from the Organized Crime Agency of British Columbia noted that all the elements of traditional organized crime pervade the Port of Vancouver, in addition to more modern threats, such as Asian Triads, Russian Gangsters, and Columbian Narco-Terrorists. The range of criminal activity is assessed as much the same as at the Port of Montreal. Motorcycle gangs are active here, linking criminal activities in the eastern and western ports.
The various elements of organized crime tend to have specialities, but they all participate in the import and export of illegal drugs – the most common and most lucrative activity. Asian and Russian gangs export stolen luxury cars. Russian gangs are active among chandlers. Mexican and Columbian gangs are involved in narco-terrorism. [In other words, the sale of narcotics is a secondary activity used to finance military and political goals in their respective homelands.]
The implications of this uncontrolled criminal activity at Canadian ports are clear. The Committee concluded that where organized crime flourishes, it does so because activities at any given port are beyond the control of the authorities in charge of the port. This lack of control creates fertile ground for terrorist activities, including illegal immigration, covert shipment of weapons, and, potentially, the importation of agents of mass destruction.”
Source
I also recall at least one Canadian Senate report that said very similar things.
On corruption generally
Transparency International’s most recent ranking:
1. Finland / Iceland / New Zealand
4. Denmark
5. Singapore
6. Sweden
7. Switzerland
8. Norway
9. Australia / Netherlands
…
151. Belarus / Cambodia / Cote d’Ivoire / Equatorial Guinea / Uzbekistan
156. Bangladesh / Chad / Congo, Democratic Republic / Sudan
160. Guinea / Iraq / Myanmar
163. Haiti
You mean, the new puppet dictatorship in Haiti, right?
This is the 2006 Transparency International Survey.
Real pirate hangouts
High-seas piracy still flourishes, and it doesn’t have beads braided into its beard, either. Real life pirates use grenade-launchers and speed boats to hijack cruise ships and cargo freighters. Here’s a piece on the piracy hotspots of the world.
Even though the global numbers for piracy is declining, there’s one area that incidents are growing: Bangladesh. In 2006 they recorded a staggering 33 incidents (22 successful, 11 attempted) making Chittagong the “world’s most dangerous port.” There have been 47 reports since January of 2006 alone. In 2003, pirates killed 14 fishermen in the Bay of Bengal waters outside of Chittagong, stealing $50,000 USD worth of fish and further making this dangerous port a pivotal area for piracy.
An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization
PETER T. LEESON
West Virginia University - Division of Economics and Finance
Further discussion
Peril on the high seas
Apr 23rd 2008
From Economist.com
SOMALIA’S coastal waters are proving increasingly perilous for mariners. Some 31 attacks on ships were reported in 2007 compared with just two in 2004, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Pirates operating around the lawless African country are more likely to use weapons than in the past; a Spanish fishing vessel was attacked at the weekend using grenade launchers. It is now considered so risky that this week France and America announced a draft UN Security Council resolution allowing foreign governments to pursue and arrest pirates in territorial waters. Nigeria’s oil wealth is also attracting more brigands to its seas. Ships navigating through traditional piracy hotspots such as the Malacca Strait and the vast coastal waters of Indonesia have suffered fewer attacks since 2004.
MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA: Somalia
The world’s most utterly failed state
The spread of piracy just draws attention to the growing chaos on Somalia’s land
“TIPPED off by friends in ports from Odessa to Mombasa, Somali pirates captured a Ukrainian freighter, the MV Faina, in the Gulf of Aden and steered it to Somalia’s coast. At first they demanded $20m for the release of ship and crew. The captain died, apparently of “hypertension”, and several pirates may have then killed each other after a quarrel. This recent incident was only the latest in a long list of similar outrages and highlights the growing menace caused by the total failure of the state of Somalia, the ultimate cause of the virus of piracy in the region.
The ship was carrying 33 T-72 Russian tanks, anti-aircraft guns and grenade launchers. Lighter weapons may have been offloaded on the Somali shore before an American warship arrived on the scene. Kenya claimed ownership of the cargo but the manifest suggests its destination was south Sudan, with Kenya’s co- operation in its delivery to be rewarded in the future with cheap south Sudanese oil. At midweek, a Russian warship was steaming to the scene to take responsibility for its citizens on the ship.”
Somali pirates seize supertanker loaded with crude
By BARBARA SURK – 49 minutes ago
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Somali pirates hijacked a supertanker hundreds of miles off the Horn of Africa, seizing the Saudi-owned ship loaded with crude and its 25-member crew, the U.S. Navy said Monday.
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Pirates hijack oil supertanker off east Africa
By Raissa Kaslowsky and Simon Webb
DUBAI, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Pirates have seized a Saudi-owned supertanker fully laden with oil off east Africa, capturing the biggest vessel yet in a shipping zone where Somali pirates strike almost daily, the U.S. navy said.
Saudi-owned television station Al Arabiya said the Sirius Star had been freed, citing an unnamed official Saudi source, but the U.S. navy and Saudi Aramco, which owns the supertanker, both said they had no knowledge of any release.