U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 20 February - 20 March 2019, HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and Warning Weekly (PAWW) Report for 14 - 20 March 2019, and 2018 World Wide Threat to Shipping Summary

U.S. Navy Office of Naval I... by on Scribd

U.S. Navy Office of Naval I... by on Scribd

20190313 Annual WTS Summary by on Scribd

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
***
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

***
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?

Brazil: Now Fighting RIver Pirates

The Guardian reports Brazil creating anti-pirate force after spate of attacks on Amazon riverboats:

Authorities in the Brazilian Amazon are to create an anti-piracy taskforce following a spate of attacks on riverboats in the northern state of Pará.

The rapid-response unit was unveiled by officials after an attack in which 11 heavily armed thieves stormed a passenger boat heading for the state capital, Belém.

Joao Bosco Rodrigues, head of Pará's specialist police divisions, said the unit was "another instrument to combat and prevent" the actions of pirates in the Amazon region. "This group will be there to react to any kind of demand on our rivers," he said.

Witnesses to the latest attack said that thieves in small motorboats approached the passenger vessel, firing into the air, on Tuesday afternoon.

Once aboard, the men reportedly threatened to execute some of the estimated 140 adult and child passengers.

"They humiliated everybody," passenger Artur Cesar told the local Diário do Pará newspaper. "They put guns to the children's heads and even said they would cut the fingers off those who didn't hand over their rings. There were pistols, revolvers – lots of weapons."

As we've seen in the past, it is necessary to jump on such problems quickly.


Amazon river boat photo from here by Gail Gillis, 2001.

Pirates of the Amazon - River Pirates

A report of some river pirates working the Amazon River and robbing passengers on a river cruising boat here:

On Sunday, the Aqua, a luxury river cruising boat just beginning a turn down the Amazon, was boarded and raided by six weapon-yielding bandits who robbed the vessel's 24 passengers of money and other valuables. Luckily that's all the pirates took as no cruisers were hurt.

River cruise line website. Map is from that site.










Nigeria also has river pirates, as reportedly do Russia, Romania and, as you see if you look to the updates to this post, did the Mississippi River and California's Sacramento River.

UPDATE: Simpler times:

Nigeria: River Pirates Kill 2, Kidnap Others

Reported here

The frequent attacks on boat drivers and passengers by pirates along the Bonny sea routes took another turn yesterday when pirates attacked a passenger boat coming from Bonny to Port Harcourt, killing two and taking others away alive.

Sources at the Bonny Waterside, Creek Road, Port Harcourt, told The Tide that the casualties were a boat driver and a passenger, adding that the vessel, an “Ibanise” boat was waylaid at KM10 along the route.

The boat, the source said, was also taken away by the pirates, who also disposesses the other passengers onboard the vessel of all their belongings before being thrown into the river to find their way home.

Meanwhile, following the incident, boat operators plying the route have embarked on an indefinite strike to press home their demand for adequate security along the Bonny-Port Harcourt sea route.