U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) for 26 December 2019 to 29 January 2020 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/SOUTHEAST ASIA Weekly Piracy Update for 23 - 29 January 2020

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U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) for 19 December 2019 to 22 January 2020 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/SOUTHEAST ASIA Weekly Piracy Update for 16 - 22 January 2020

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U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) for 31 October 2019 - 4 December 2019 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/SOUTHEAST ASIA Weekly Piracy Update for 28 November to 4 December 2019

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

Southeast Asia Piracy: Pirates hijack Thai oil tanker, Steal Part of Cargo

Malaysia New Straits Times reports Pirates hijack Thai oil tanker, make off with 1.5mil litres of diesel:

A group of armed pirates hijacked a Thai oil tanker in waters off Kuantan and made off

with about 1.5 million litres of diesel fuel on June 23.

Asia News Network reported that the tanker, CP41, was boarded by pirates when it was en route from Singapore to the Songkhla province in southern Thailand.

The hijackers, who were equipped with guns and knives, had captured the captain and crew members during the incident before destroying communications equipment.

The men later proceeded to transfer the fuel into their ship and fled the scene.

The captain and crew members were left unharmed.

U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 12 April - 11 May 2016

  U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 12 April - 11 May 2016

Sea Piracy,Sea Robbers and the 2015 Oceans Beyond Piracy Report

Oceans Beyond Piracy has issued its 2015 report on State of Maritime Piracy 2015: Assessing the Human and Economic Cost which I commend to your reading. The good news is that the overall trend line of sea piracy is down. However . . .

From the Executive Summary

Western Indian Ocean Region
Despite reduced spending, international efforts in the Indian Ocean continued to suppress major attacks. However, several recent hijackings of regional vessels could signal an increased threat.

Gulf of Guinea
The Gulf of Guinea is the most dangerous region for seafarers with a rise in violence across the year and an increase in kidnap-for-ransom in the fourth quarter of 2015.

Southeast Asia
Cooperative regional measures in Southeast Asia resulted in steep declines in piracy attacks in the second half of 2015.

A couple of quick points - 52% of the Gulf of Guinea )GoG) piracy incidents occur within the territorial water of a state (making them acts of sea robbery and internal crimes to the state where the incident occurred). Ship hijacking is a minor part of a larger scheme of robbery and crew kidnapping in the GoG. In addition, crew members get killed in the GoG, with 23 murders in 2015.

No large commercial vessels have been hijacked in the waters off Somalia, but the smaller "regional" vessels have been taken and crews captured.

Piracy may have fallen off in the second half of 2015 in Southeast Asia waters, but, as you can see from the maps below, the first have must have been busy.

From the excellent work done by the International Maritime Bureau of the ICC, here are two maps of piracy incidents, the first being for 2015 for the area described int the OPB report, the second for the current year to 2 May:

2015

2016 to 2 May

Southeast Asia Piracy: "Pirates board tanker off Pulau Aur, gun down Vietnamese crew member"

The Star (Malaysia) headline covers it: Pirates board tanker off Pulau Aur, gun down Vietnamese crew member:

Armed men who boarded a tanker in the sea off Pulau Aur, south Johor Sunday, shot dead a Vietnamese crew member and robbed the 16-man crew in what was described as the first fatality in Malaysian waters in two years.
***
The attack occurred about 5.30am while the asphalt-laden vessel was on its way from Singapore to Vietnam.

More from the ICC International Maritime Bureau Live Piracy Report:

7.12.2014: 0530 LT: Posn: 02:15.15N – 104:49.30E, Around 20nm SE of Pulau Aur, Johor, Malaysia.
Seven armed pirates boarded an Asphalt tanker underway from Singapore to Vietnam. They checked the cargo, stole crew properties and left the vessel. After the pirates left the vessel the crew found the third engineer bleeding from his head. It appeared that he had been shot. The Master reported the incident to POCC Singapore and requested for medical assistance. A medical evacuation was carried out and the third engineer was admitted to a hospital where the doctors pronounced him dead. The remaining crew are safe and the vessel was boarded by the authorities for investigation.

Nearby is a map, also from the IMB, showing attacks in the same area since the start of 2014. Every red marker on this map is a hijacked tanker of some sort.

While on this topic, a brief word of praise for the IMB's Piracy Reporting Center , which does a terrific job keeping track of piracy and armed robbery against shipping and seafarers worldwide. Noel Choong heads it up. It's an hugely valuable service they provide.

South China Sea Fuel Pirates: More and More

Interesting article from the Eurasia Review "Syphoning Confidence: Piracy And Fuel Theft In Southeast Asia":

Most serious incidents involve illegal fuel syphoning in the Straits of Malacca and South China Sea. Ten small tankers were hit between April and September: Sri Phang Nga, Orapin 4, Budi Mersa Dua, Ai Maru, Moresby 9, Oriental Glory, VL14, Orapin 2, Pentrader and Naniwa Maru. To put this in perspective, since 2011 a total of 18 syphoning attacks have been reported of which 13 were successful.

Most syphoning attacks occur at night, well outside Singapore’s port limits frequently in the less-policed waters north of Indonesia’s Bintan island. Small product tankers under 5,000 tons are boarded by small groups of lightly armed pirates and taken into the South China Sea; their names sometimes re-painted and communications equipment disabled en route to a rendezvous point with a second vessel. Once alongside, the fuel can be offloaded within hours.

Shipments of Marine Gas Oil (MGO) are targeted for several reasons. First, MGO sold illicitly is lucrative, fetching above US$500 per tonne. Illegal bunkering is a perennial problem beyond port limits. In remote areas, the black market may be the easiest way to obtain marine fuel. Second, loaded product tankers present inviting targets, being low, slow and easily trackable. Third, many attacks betray the hallmarks of preplanned, syndicate involvement: syphoning operations are well organised, conducted with apparent foreknowledge of the cargo fuel type and how to dispose of it. Crews are normally unharmed.

The author of the piece correctly points out:

Targeted syphoning attacks, with strong indications of insider involvement, do not pose a generalised threat to shipping or the energy trade, although attacks do still occur on vulnerable vessel types elsewhere within the Straits of Malacca Traffic Separation Scheme.

In other words, this "cargo jacking" from small tankers is a crime similar to, but different from the "normal" level of piracy in the area discussed. This "normal" level has been steadily decreasing as a result of various regional/international actions and agreement.

That "normal" included a whole bunch of "snatch and grab" events where a couple of robbers would get on board a ship and steal those things not nailed down. In a few cases, there was armed robbery in which the master and crew were robbed while being threatened usually, in these waters, at knife point. After getting what they could, the robbers would rush away.

Now, however, we see far better organized and orchestrated schemes which involve the hijacking of a ship, bringing another "pirate" ship alongside and transferring all or part of the hijacked ship's cargo to the "pirate" tanker. All of which takes organizational skill and, presumably, a significant criminal enterprise to support this complex task and to have a ready market for the stolen cargo.

I'll leave it to you to decide how much local corruption might play a role in such matters. It is touched on in the article linked to above.

If you take a look at the ship image above, you can see why these little tankers are so vulnerable to piracy - they sit low in the water (easy for pirates to board from small boats), have small crews, little or no security and carry valuable cargo.

Just to help you have a frame of reference, here's the general level of piracy/sea robbery in the vicinity of Singapore since the start of the year as depicted at the valuable ICC CCS IMB Live Piracy Map site. First, the big view of the area:

You might note that the Strait of Malacca itself is pretty clear of attacks and boardings, which are now concentrated in the anchorages and holding areas at the southern end of the strait.

Let's drill down a bit:

Here's what you need to know - every single one of the red markers in these maps is a hijacking of a product or bunkering tanker.  Yep, even that one up there near Kuala Lumpur.

Let's go back to the fact set out in the cited article:

Ten small tankers were hit between April and September [2014]... To put this in perspective, since 2011 a total of 18 syphoning attacks have been reported of which 13 were successful.

So - of the 18 hijacking since 2011, 10 occurred in those 5 months of 2014.

As the gangs involved got more experience and developed their markets, it can be assumed they got more aggressive.

Sea Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea: Not Going Away

Maritime Security firm Nexus Consulting President Kevin Doherty discusses the current state of piracy in this BoombergTV video here. Select transcript portions (my corrections included):

Q: How brave [grave] is the threat of piracy today compared with, say, the time frame around the Captain Phillips kidnapping?

A: I would say it is more prevalent.

On a global scale, definitely the incidences have increased threefold over the past two years.

We have locked down Somali piracy, but we still have Nigeria and Southeast Asia heating up.
***
Q: How much is lost due to piracy disruption each year?

A: Hot [Well over] $100 million [billion] in losses and expenses.

Q: $100 billion?

A: That's right.

Q: Who is paying for that?

A: We all are, really.
***
Q: Are you saying that the Nigerian government is in cahoots?

A: I don't have any direct evidence at this point in time, but i would say that they certainly make it difficult to protect themselves and the commercial vessels.

Interesting viewing and a dose of reality in the world of Nigerian (and SE Asia) piracy/sea robbery. I like Kevin's pointed suggestion that there's a whole lot of corruption going on out there that makes some of the world less safe.

In other news, a claim that there was some pirate-like activity in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, Pirates Attempt to Hijack Israeli Cargo Ship At Sea:

One of the ZIM shipping company's cargo ships was attacked by pirates Wednesday afternoon in the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, adjacent to Somalia.

Security guards stationed aboard the transport ship repelled the attack by the group of pirates who attempted to abduct the ship while in the middle of open waters.

The incident occurred as the Israeli ship made its way from East Asia back to Israel. The ship sailed into an ambush when two pirate ships snuck up alongside the ZIM vessel, and the pirates attempted to get on board and take control of the ship.

Been a couple of these "attempts" near the Bab recently. Map from the Live Piracy Map site of the ICC CCS IMB.

UPDATE: Nice BBC News report on West Africa piracy here:

***
In most cases of West African piracy, the pirates want the cargo, not the crew.

This means levels of violence are higher than they are off the coast of Somalia, where the pirates need to keep the crew alive in order to obtain ransoms.
***
Underwriters have designated the waters off Nigeria, Togo and Benin a "war risk area", pushing up insurance costs.

This ultimately affects the cost of food, oil and anything else that is transported by sea from West Africa.

BBC News has a documentary on this topic coming up:

Tune in to the BBC World Service at 19:05 GMT on Saturday 15 November to listen to the documentary Chasing West Africa's Pirates. It will also be available to listen to online or as a download.

Worldwide Piracy to 13 Oct 11

From the file of the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, weekly
Worldwide Threat to Shipping Report. A highlight of some areas around the globe:

G. (U) WEST AFRICA:
.
1. (U) NIGERIA: Product Tanker CAPE BIRD boarded and hijacked 08 October at 2040 UTC, near position 04:55N, 004:51E, approximately 90 nm south of Lagos, Nigeria. Recent reporting indicates that the ship has not yet been released. (IMB)
.
2. (U) BENIN: Chemical tanker fired upon, boarded, and robbed 2 October at 2337 LT while drifting in position 04:06N, 002:51E, approximately 136 nm southeast of Cotonou, Benin. Pirates armed with automatic weapons approached in two small boats and boarded the vessel. The crew retreated into the citadel and stayed there the whole night, when they emerged the
next day they found that the pirates had stolen ship cash. (IMB)
.
3. (U) GUINEA: Cargo ship (THOR LIGHT) boarded and robbed 29 September at 0505 UTC while anchored in position 09:24N, 013:43W, Conakry anchorage. Ten to twelve robbers armed with guns and knives boarded the vessel and assaulted the eleven crew members. Robbers stayed onboard for approximately 40 minutes, during which time they stole ship's and crew's cash and crew's personal belongings before escaping. Port authorities were contacted but received no response. (Open Source, IMB)
.
4. (U) TOGO: A chemical tanker experienced an attempted boarding on 24 September at 0130 UTC while anchored in position 06:01N, 001:15E at the Lome Anchorage. Two small boats approached shipside, the duty officer told them to move away, but was ignored. Later, two more boats approached the vessel from the stern and secured themselves to the ship's rudder. The master informed the Togo Navy, which responded and detained all four boats. Nothing was stolen from the vessel. (IMB)
.
5. (U) TOGO: Bulk carrier experienced an attempted boarding on 16 September at 0340 LT while anchored in position 06:03.7N, 001:17.5E at the Lome Anchorage. Seven robbers in a fast boat approached the vessel, one of the robbers had a hook attached to a rope. The duty crew spotted the robbers, contacted the bridge, and informed another watchman. Master
raised the alarm, sounded the shipís horn, and the crew directed search lights. The pirates aborted the attack upon seeing the alerted crew. The Togo Navy was contacted but did not respond; later, a naval boat patrolled the area. (IMB)
.
6. (U) BENIN: Product tanker (MATTHEOS I) hijacked on 14 September at 0121 UTC during ship-to-ship (STS) transfer operations approximately 62 nm southwest of Cotonou (see below incident). The vessel had 23 crew members, composed of Filipinos and Spanish, Peruvian, and Ukrainian officers. The pirates sailed the vessel to an unknown location. (IMB)
.
7. (U) BENIN: Product tanker boarded on 14 September at 0121 UTC during STS operations approximately 62 nm southwest of Cotonou. Master sent out an SSAS alert and the crew locked themselves into the engine room. The pirates later left the vessel, and when the crew left the engine room there were no pirates onboard. (IMB)

Things About Pirates

First, from gCaptain, The Evolving US Piracy Policy:

The [U.S.] Dept. of State believes the best action plan is to deprive the pirates of ransom revenues, however it is very hard to track the money. The NSC [U.S. National Security Council] calls for disrupting bases in Somalia, but no action has been taken. Under UNCLOS, piracy is a crime of universal jurisdiction, yet prosecution is a matter of national “soft” laws. The multinational character of the Flags of Convenience (FOC) system complicates the situation where there’s no clear national responsibilities. Navies who capture pirates often can’t find States willing to prosecute. The area pirates operate are too vast for navies to enforce, and military assets are urgently needed elsewhere (particularly Afghanistan and Iraq). Pirates continue to attack less than one-half percent of shipping, and of those, have a 30% success rate. The Dept. of Defense argues that due to the relatively low number of incidents, merchant shipping needs to play a larger role in its own defense. It’s noted in all cases where private security teams are employed, they have success- fully kept pirates from boarding, making ships a hard target. Use of armed ships is contrary to BMPs, however, the ships that have 100% record of deterring pirate attacks are the ones that ignore the BMPs. Many Port states are against use of arms, which can create difficulties in ports of call.

Evolving policy? Sounds like the NSC has made this high visibility issue a low priority item. Which may make sense from the U.S. point of view since so few (okay, none) of the captured ships and merchant sailors are U.S. Of course, there is that "freedom of the seas" aspect that keeps some U.S. Navy ships out there bobbing about . . .

Shiptalk has a couple of post up about torture of Somali pirate captives "Human Costs" and "Holding Back". The first contains the not-so-surprising news that Somali pirates are not good hosts to their captives and are pretty rough in their piracy efforts:

The Oceans Beyond Piracy Project has gathered to fight this seeming lack of public concern/knowledge. Their study, “The Human Cost of Somali Piracy”, was launched on June 6 at Chatham House in London. The study’s findings indicate that during 2010:

• 4,185 seafarers were attacked with firearms and rocket propelled grenades.

• 342 seafarers were rescued from citadels (ships’ reinforced security rooms).

• 1,090 seafarers were taken hostage.

• 516 seafarers were used as human shields.

• As many as 488 seafarers were subjected to abuse or torture.

The cost of piracy is high for seafarers. Both successful and unsuccessful attacks expose seafarers to dangerous experiences with the potential for long-term physical and psychological trauma.

Somali pirates with hostages

The second Shiptalk post has to do with a security firm asserting that there is a "cover up" of sorts concerning the treatment of pirate hostages:

A security company speaking at a conference has claimed that shipowners are holding back some of the worst news about the treatment of seafarers taken hostage by Somali pirates.

Why a cover up? To not "alarm" seafarers heading into the pirate zone . . .

On another piracy front, the International Maritime Bureau has issued some warnings about piracy in the South China Sea (an area I've been neglecting lately), as set out here:

A global maritime watchdog warned ships traversing the South China Sea bordering Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore following the hijack of three tugboats and a barge in recent weeks.

Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's, or IMB's piracy reporting center based in Kuala Lumpur, said alerts have been sent to ships in the area amid a sudden rash of hijackings.

"We are sending out this alert as these are the first three hijackings of vessels in the South China Sea this year," he said. "Normally pirates in the area are opportunistic as they rob a ship and flee but the hijacking of a vessel requires planning so we believe a syndicate is involved," Choong added.

A report on a missing tug (one of the above attacks) from the IMB's Live Piracy Report:

• Attack Number: 2011/232
• Date: Wed May 25 2011
• Vessel Type: Tug
• Location detail: Kuching to Port Klang
• Attack Type: Hijacked
• Incident Details:
  25.05.2011: NS : enroute from Kuching to port Klang, South China Sea.
  The tug towing a barge departed Kuching on 24.5.2011 with eta port Klang 30.05.2011.
  The tug and barge failed to arrive at the discharge port and the owners attempt to contact the tug was futile. On 02.6.2011 the barge was located by a Malaysian warship. The crew members were rescued by a fishing vessel. The tug is still missing.

About a year ago a hijacked tug was recovered in the Philippines undergoing an identity change, as set out here.

As usual, there are numerous reports in Southeast Asia, West Africa and South America of various anchored or moored vessels being boarded by robbers who either steal material from the vessels they board and/or rob the crew of their personal belongings.

UPDATE: In addition to the reports in Southeast Asia of moored or anchored vessels being boarded and robbed, in the last couple of weeks, there have been boardings and robberies of vessels underway in an area near Singapore, noted in ReCAAP reports:

(Report 12-11) On 30 May 11 at or about 0129 hrs, a Singapore-registered tanker Dong Jiang was underway at approximately 30 nm east of Horsburgh Lighthouse (01° 19.30' N, 104° 54.50' E) when six robbers boarded the vessel. The robbers stole cash and other valuables before they escaped. The vessel was enroute from Tanjung Pelapas, Malaysia to Balongan, Indonesia at the time of the incident. The crew was not injured.
***
(Report 13-11) On 2 Jun 11 at or about 0530 hrs, a Mongolia-registered general cargo ship Shipinco I
was underway at approximately 1.9 nm west of Batu Berhanti buoy (01° 10.76' N, 103° 50.87' E) when five robbers boarded the vessel. Armed with long knives, they robbed the Master, 3rd Officer and Chief Cook, and escaped with cash and the crew’s personal belongings including watches, mobile phones and clothing. The crew was not injured.
***
(Report 14-11) On 6 Jun 11 at or about 2315 hrs, an Indonesian-registered LPG tanker Asian Gas was
underway at approximately 3.65 nm southeast of Raffles Lighthouse (01° 9.06' N, 103° 48.0' E) when eight masked robbers from one speed boat boarded the vessel at the starboard quarter. Armed with long knives, they robbed the crew and escaped after taking with them laptops, mobile phones and undetermined amount of cash. The crew was not injured.

ReCAAP Report Map for Last 3  Incidents