The largest ransom ever paid to Somali pirates has been dropped onto the deck of a Greek-flagged oil tanker carrying two million barrels of oil.
The ransom delivered on Sunday is believed to be between $5.5m and $7m, according to unnamed sources interviewed by the Reuters news agency.
With 28 crew members on board, the Maran Centaurus oil tanker was captured in November as it was crossing the Indian Ocean, northeast of the Seychelles islands.
The tanker was sailing from Kuwait to the United States.
The European Union’s anti-piracy force says the crew includes one Romanian, two Ukrainians, nine Greeks and 16 Filipinos.
The EU has an anti-piracy force?
yet ships are still not allowed to carry weapons of their own? I would suggest that for $5.5m they could hire a blackwater type company to protect their ships but I guess some governments would still complain about that…..oh well at least the crew are alive this time.
“The EU has an anti-piracy force?”
Of course, and they spend most of their time bringing frivolous lawsuits against filesharers.
I bet they got a surprise when they were instructed to actually go after ‘real’ pirates for a change.
“The EU has an anti-piracy force?”
Paying these guys off is like throwing food to starving wolves. They will be back as long as the EU and the rest of the lame losers want to pay ransoms with money rather than hot lead.
Forget about Blackwater. Hire ex-military Russian baddasses! They’ll take care of the problem.
I recall a Guardian article in May, 2009 which suggested that EU based corporations are planning and providing logistics for these pirate attacks. The Guardian http://bit.ly/zzB11
[Indeed. John blogged it – ed.]
EU piracy force must be made up of French. Don’t go get them, just pay them off.
As if oil isn’t expensive enough on it’s own.
Perhaps the EU believes now that the pirates have 7 million $ that will be enough and they’ll stop.
RBG
Slightly off topic but, I wonder if the ‘Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’ could survive its maritime shenanigans if there were a stronger approach to piracy.
Actually there is no law that prevents ships from carrying arms, its just that corporations don’t want to spend money on security teams.
They ran it all on a great big graph, and X turned out to be less than Y, so no armed security for their ships.
Chicken Feed.
Still not as good as Piet Hein. He lead the Dutch to get the Spanish Treasure Fleet and returned home to Holland with over 11.5 million guilder. That translates to roughly 192 million dollars today.
Now THAT is piracy!
Cursor_
I have no doubt that crew members of these seized vessels are involved sometimes. There is some international mob aiding and abetting this crap.
If politicians would allow the US to drill for its own oil then this wouldn’t be an issue.
But then again looking at the facts of paying ransom, crews not allowed to protect the ships, no plans to stop the pirates… maybe there is more to this than meets the eye?
At this point you have to be blind not to see that the word “ransom” looks an awful lot like just another government wealth transfer scheme to third world countries.
In the scheme of things a small heist, but it does give politicians and world leaders another avenue to fleece the people from their respective countries while hiding behind the phrase, “the pirates did it.”
The US Navy needs to build some Q ships and get these pirates. How hard is it to build Q ships capable of killing these guys. Enough ships pirates attack an armed US Navy ship and they will be wary of attacking any US flagged vessel ever again.
These “pirates” started out defending (in the absence of a government to provide Coast Guard protection) their waters from the dumping of toxic nuclear waste and overfishing by foreigners from around the world.
They use “pirate like” tactics to be sure but, sometimes “the bad guys” is a matter of perspective.
Why haven’t we convened a group of united nations to provide aid and security for the world. They could provide charity and keep the peace. There could be courts where international conflicts could be resolved with minimal conflict. Oh I forget, we have one.
Most oil tankers are not used for fishing and dumping toxic nuclear waste. If they are a “Coast Guard”, they should release the tanker once the determine the vessel is not being used to transport nuclear waste or engaging in fishing operations. Unless that is the case, these guys are simply pirates.
# 16 /T. said, on January 18th, 2010 at 6:57 am
These “pirates” started out defending (in the absence of a government to provide Coast Guard protection) their waters from the dumping of toxic nuclear waste and overfishing by foreigners from around the world.