Southeast Asia's modern-day pirates.
Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:33 am
Image:Southeast Asia Globe
By Robin Spiess
July 15 2019
“Here I am, meeting up with this big king [pirate] smuggler, and I keep getting distracted,”
"“It’s funny – the first thing you hear, when talking to a pirate [in Southeast Asia], is that they don’t define themselves as pirates,” said von Hoesslin, laughing. “We know that law enforcement officials and academics want to call them that, but… they’re always like, ‘What? No way. Somalia has pirates, not us. We don’t do that’.”
"Every year in Asia, up to 90% of all recorded maritime incidents are armed robberies of ships – whether they’re the result of armed fishermen jumping aboard in search of laptops and phones or the result of well-planned operations by trained pirates in search of millions of dollars in profit. There are far fewer kidnappings, ransoms and killings on average in the region than elsewhere in the world. Even when maritime thieves in Southeast Asian waters are armed, their operations rarely end in serious injury."
" A typical hijacking of a barge carrying about 4,000 tonnes of CPO could see up to $1 million in profit for the people who pulled it off. But a successful attack – one that would be assured to go off without a hitch – required insiders, intel, and economic backing that a motley crew of pirates wouldn’t typically be able to coordinate. "
"Until this year, Southeast Asia was the most pirate-prone region in the world – but global piracy rates have been on the decline. Between 2017 and 2018, the total number of annual incidents reported in Southeast Asia fell from 102 to 76 total, and 2019 is on track to be one of the least active years for piracy that the region – and the world – has seen in a long time. In Indonesian waters, there were only three attacks in the first quarter of 2019, the fewest reported incidents to be reported in nearly a decade. "
Full https://southeastasiaglobe.com/black-spots/