Danube River Pirates: Small Time Crime

Danube River System

 Danube shipping company reports pirate attacks on its ships in Romania:

Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company (Izmail, Odesa region) has reported a pirate attack on its UDP-1724 barge, which was in a convoy headed by the Perm motor vessel, on the 20-25 kilometer of the Borcea-Bala stretch of the Danube River on Romania on Jan. 4, 2012.

According to the press release of the company, first the motor vessel steered the barge and two sections with ore. After leaving them at a distance of 25 kilometers from Borcea, the vessel returned for the remaining sections, and at that time about fifteen people attacked the barge.

"A" marks Borcea, Romania

They demanded alcohol, cigarettes, money, fuel, and searched the barge. They threatened the skipper with a knife and threatened to throw him overboard. The attackers took from the barge two rope coils each 100 meters long and old maneuvering ropes about 150 meters long. The crewmembers were not injured by the pirates.

Danube River Pirates: Arrests in Serbia

Reported at Piracy in Europe: Danube River Pirates Arrested in Serbia:

The issue of piracy has made global headlines in recent years with events off the Somali coast, but instances of piracy are also occurring along the waterways of mainland Europe, according to a report in Croatian daily, Jutarnji List, on October 12, 2011.

According to the paper, transportation company Dunavski Lloyd has suffered three attacks this year alone on the internationally vital transport route of the Danube River, which runs from Rotterdam to the Black Sea, and is an important trade route for many European businesses.
Shipping Equipment Stolen

In the last attack, on the company' ship Sloga, approximately 60,000 euros worth of equipment was stolen from the vessel in the Serbian port of Smederevo, a theft which delayed Sloga's onward journey to the Black Sea, due to lack of equipment. The theft left the ship without key navigation equipment and the ability to raise the anchor, among other things . The paper notes that the pirates are not targeting crews, merely equipment
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In order to combat the piracy, the owner of Dunavski Lloyd, Davor Ivancan, appealed to the Croatian embassy in Belgrade for assistance. As a result of the embassy's efforts, Serbian police looked into the three cases, and have made four arrests, according to a report in the Croatian Times on October 15, 2011.

Some may remember tales of a different breed of river pirates:

River Pirates of the Danube

Romanian 'Pirates' Pester Bulgarian Ships on Danube River:

Romanian pirates have attacked by boats the Bulgarian ship "St Apostol Andrey" at the 128th kilometer on the Danube river.

The Bulgarian daily "Trud" (Labor) cites the captain of the ship, Nencho Anchev, who says 1 ton of barley from the cargo has been stolen.

The incident happened late Sunday night, neat the Romanian city of Braila, where the ship came to anchor. The crew noticed the loss in the morning.

"No one hear[d] anything during the night. It is just three of us working 12-hour shifts, so we do not have a night guard," Anchev says.

Bralia riverside

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Anchev further voices outrage that the European Commission is pouring money in border police cutters for Romania all while the Danube River remains unprotected from pirates' raids, adding such incidents were common occurrence.

Seriously? Someone unloads a ton of grain and the crew sleeps through it?