Landing the Big One

Landing the Big One

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Guyana: Fish pirates strike again


Reported here:
Pirates attacked the captain and five crew members of a fishing vessel in Suriname waters around 6 pm on Sunday and carted off over $1M worth of fish even as a gang of sea bandits was busted in that country last week.

Owner of the boat, Badrudeen Khan of Mahaica told Stabroek News yesterday that five masked pirates, carrying three guns and cutlasses "broadsided" the captain, Mickey and a crew member to prevent them from looking at their faces.

He said his men were about 16 miles from the Coroni shore and were cooking when they saw a boat approaching at a slow rate. He said they did not become suspicious as they thought the men were fishermen.

"But when the pirates reach closer they started to fire several shots and they ordered the crew to lie on the ice box. Then they tell them to get up and go in the fish pen," he related.

After that, Khan said the pirates removed two of the workers and held them at gunpoint while ordering them to discharge the fish into their boat. He said it took nearly two hours as the two men had to transfer "700 trout, 50 snapper and over 200 mackerel and king fish."

The attackers also escaped with a drum of gasoline, one of the propellers from the engine, two cell phones, a compass and a global positioning system. He said before the pirates left they "destroyed the engine coil so the crew couldn't start the boat to trace them."

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