London is Profiting from Somalia Piracy

By Farid Omar

Since the collapse of central government in Somalia in 1991, pirates have reigned supreme over the Somali high seas, hijacking commercial vessels and ships carrying humanitarian supplies. In the latest incident, pirates have released the Ukrainian freighter, MV Faina, walking away with an estimated $3.2 million in ransom money.

Piracy is a lucrative business in war-torn Somalia. Last year alone, pirate gangs were paid an estimated £35million from holding 40 ships and hundreds of crew members to ransom. Some sources claim that Somali pirates may have collected as much as $150 million last year although this figure could not be independently verified. While piracy continues to be a menace, it is was the pirates who hijacked the MV Faina, loaded with 33 tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition who captured global attention. The pirates had no idea that their booty was an estimated $30 million worth of deadly weaponry, heading for South Sudan via Kenya.

While the western media has often focused its attention on Somali pirates, the international community has paid a blind eye to the ravaging of Somali seas by foreign vessels that either fish illegally or dump toxic material, including nuclear waste in Somali territorial waters in flagrant violation of the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the beleaguered East-African nation.

Sugunle Ali, a spokesman for the pirates on the just released MV Faina, once told the New York Times that in the eyes of the world, the pirates had been misunderstood.

"We don´t consider ourselves sea bandits," he said. "We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard." In Somalia, pirates claim that they only impose heavy "fines" as opposed to claiming "ransom" when seizing ships that illegally enter Somali seas.

Col. Gaddafi, the newly-minted African Union (AU)chairman, recently told Kenya's Daily Nation that he doesn't believe that Somalia's piracy was a crime.

" It is a response to greedy western nations, who invade and exploit Somalia's water resources illegally". Said the Libyan President. " It is not piracy, it is self-defence.It is defending Somalia children's food". Col Gaddafi argued.

After the collapse of the Somali state, there were no patrols along the shoreline and Somalia´s tuna-rich waters were soon plundered by commercial fishing fleets from around the world. Somali fishermen armed themselves and turned into vigilantes by confronting illegal fishing boats and demanding that they pay a tax.
However, things later got out of hand as the vigilantes in the high seas quickly transformed themselves into pirates hijacking any vessels they could catch.

But unknown to most in the rest of the world, Somali pirates are not the only ones benefiting from this high stakes industry. Last month, the BBC reported that the hijacking of ships off the coast of Somalia has created a mini-industry for a business entity based in the UK. An investigation by Simon Cox, a BBC reporter, on how ransom is paid ,has revealed that money trails lead to one destination: London.


According to Cox, securing the release of hijacked ships and crew members is "the responsibility of a hidden mini-industry of lawyers, negotiators and security teams based nearly 7,000km away, in London, UK, the business capital of the world's maritime industry".

Simon Beale, a marine underwriter, says that all these specialist services don't come cheap in the UK. He adds that by factoring in the cost of lawyers, risk consultants, security advisers, as well as the fixed overheads, and delivering the money to the pirates , all these "can lead to doubling the ransom amount."

Cox adds that this hidden mini-industry thrives because paying a ransom is not illegal under British law unless it is paid to terrorists. It has long been established that piracy in Somalia does not constitute a politically motivated act as pirates simply hold vessels for ransom. As such, they are treated as criminal gangs in the high seas, not terrorists.

Cox notes that last year, Somali pirates pocketed an estimated $50m. "Not all of this is going to British lawyers, negotiators and security teams but a fair chunk of it will be". Says Cox. "This has led to some criticism, particularly in Spain, that London is profiting from crime".

In dealing with piracy, the best solution is for the international community to put to an end the illegal fishing and dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters as well as reign in on the mini industry in UK that is profiting from this criminal enterprise.

More importantly, piracy can only be rooted out if the international community supports the creation of a peaceful and stable state in Somalia. This would entail the promotion of an inter-Somali dialogue that would bring together all parties in the Somali conflict in direct negotiations on the way to finding a lasting solution to the political crisis in Somalia.