Dangerous Waters: Modern-Day Piracy

Despite international efforts to stamp it out, piracy is still very much a problem in some areas of the world.

AN INTERNATIONAL CRIME

Piracy has existed for as long as civilisations have plied the oceans for trade and exploration. It has been a fertile subject for literature and swashbuckling Hollywood classics, but modern pirates have none of the charm of their storybook predecessors. The pirates of modern oceans are ruthless gangs of seagoing robbers, well-organised and armed with assault rifles and antitank weapons. Historically, their hunting grounds have been limited to narrow bodies of water which funnel shipping into predictable routes, easily accessible from coastal bases. 

THE NATURE OF MODERN PIRACY

According to international law, piracy is any illegal act of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or passengers of a private ship, and directed against another ship on the high seas or outside the jurisdiction of any state.

For decades, the methods used in pirate attacks have been analysed and, while there are marked differences in the nature and conduct of piracy in the various global hot spots, some common features of the modern crime have been identified.

Opportunistic piracy tends to be less frequent and limited to robbery by small gangs operating against ‘easy prey’, vessels anchored or in port, for cash or valuables in the ship's safe or the crews’ lockers. By contrast, mainstream piracy against large targets is highly organised, increasingly sophisticated and often linked with crime syndicates which supply funding for fast boats and high-powered weapons.

Pirates are armed with a variety of military-grade weapons — assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, shotguns and small arms — all readily available on the black market. They are also equipped with relatively high-tech equipment such as satellite phones, global positioning systems and VHF radio.

The attack craft favoured by modern pirates are small, low-profile boats or skiffs capable of speeds of up to 25 knots. These are deployed in a variety of tactics: by stealth in ones or twos approaching the stern or other blind spot under cover of darkness; or multiple boats using swarming or decoy manoeuvres. They also use larger ‘mother ships’, usually hijacked fishing trawlers or coastal dhows, carrying fuel, equipment and personnel to supply the smaller motorboats, thereby extending the range of operations up to 1000 nautical miles offshore.

The vulnerability of ships to attack depends on factors such as the ship type, size, speed, freeboard and the type of voyage it is undertaking. Pirates commonly exploit vessels with low freeboard travelling slowly or at anchor. Merchant vessels are often forced to slow down or stop at the point of an AK47 or RPG. Like their buccaneering predecessors, modern pirates have shown considerable skill and daring in boarding ships and, once on board, act quickly in suppressing opposition and taking control of the bridge and engine room.

Different scenarios may then unfold depending on the pirates’ objective. The ship may be hijacked and sailed to a port where it is repainted and given a new identity through false registration papers purchased from corrupt or complicit officials. Another form of piracy directed against oil tankers involves stealing the cargo by pumping it to another vessel alongside and later selling it at a discount on the black market. A third possible outcome is the ship and/or crew may be kidnapped and held to ransom, which may amount to several millions, depending on the size and sophistication of the ship, the value of its cargo and the number of crew. 

PIRACY AGAINST PRIVATE YACHTS

Private yachts and pleasure craft are also preyed upon by pirates. The highest-risk areas for yachts are the Caribbean and Central America, South East Asia, the Seychelles and the West African Coast. Attacks on cruising yachts tend to occur in littoral or territorial seas near popular tourist destinations or when the yacht is transiting a coastal or inter-island sea away from commercial sea lanes. While such attacks are normally opportunistic and robbery-motivated, violence is not uncommon and crews have been killed or injured and sometimes kidnapped for ransom. Yachts may also be hijacked for resale or for use in illegal activity such as drug or gun running. 

THE COSTS OF PIRACY

Despite the difficulties in quantification, the costs of piracy, both direct and indirect, have been identified, all of which add to the price of transported goods and are passed on to consumers. 

The main direct costs of piracy are the loss of cargo and damage to vessels, ransoms, increased rates and premiums of insurance, the costs of re-routing vessels away from high risk zones (longer voyage times, increased fuel consumption of faster steaming, reduced number of annual voyages per vessel), on-board deterrent equipment and the hire of private armed security personnel, naval deployments in piracy hot spots, law enforcement, prosecution and imprisonment of offenders, and the operating costs of multi-national organisations dedicated to monitoring and reducing piracy.

The indirect costs of piracy are less apparent but no less real and, in some ways, more far-reaching. These include reduced regional trade, disruption of local industries, inflated food prices, humanitarian crises or civil unrest through food shortages, and loss of foreign investment diverted to alternative, less volatile regions.

International maritime organisations have tried to quantify the economic impact of piracy on the global economy and conservatively estimate that figure to be as high as $16 billion per year, while many experts warn that the actual figure could be much higher and will probably rise in the years ahead.

Piracy also exacts a terrible toll on ships’ crews. Violence is common during attacks and victims are subjected to physical and psychological trauma that frequently results in death, physical injury or post-traumatic stress disorder. In its State of Maritime Piracy Report for 2017, Oceans Beyond Piracy records that 5,590 seafarers were “impacted” by piracy and armed robbery incidents in that year, of whom 19 were killed and 137 were kidnapped for periods ranging from 4 to 264 days.

PIRACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA

The Malacca and Singapore Straits form a narrow 900km stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, with a choke point near Singapore that is only 1.5nm wide. As the main channel between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, it is one of the most important, and most congested, shipping lanes in the world. More than 140,000 vessels traverse it annually, carrying about 40 per cent of the world’s traded goods. Of Australia’s top 15 trading partners, 11 are in South East Asia, accounting for about $546 billion (61 per cent) of all our trade.

Between 1995 and 2016, South East Asia emerged as a hotbed for piracy that rendered its sea lanes the most dangerous in the world. Forty per cent of the world’s pirate attacks occurred here, ranging from armed robbery by small opportunistic gangs against ships in port or at anchor to large-scale, sophisticated strikes on oil tankers at sea. A spate of kidnappings in the Sulu and Celebes Seas by Abu Sayyaf militants, a terrorist network linked to ISIS, led Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to call for pirates to be ‘blasted out of the seas’.

With piracy increasing year-on-year, the governments of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia collaborated in stepping up anti-piracy patrols and surveillance, markedly reducing the incidence of maritime crime in the region by 2017. But their task is a daunting one and difficult to sustain in the long term due to a lack of resources and the vast area of operations. As a result, piracy in South East Asia is on the rise once again, with more than 20 incidents occurring in the first two months of 2020 and security agencies expressing “serious concerns” about further attacks in the future.

NAVAL RESPONSE TO PIRACY

The primary international response to piracy has been naval, concentrated in the northwest Indian Ocean around the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Gulf and Red Sea. Currently, there are three naval coalitions operating in the region: the European Union Naval Force (Operation Atalanta); the NATO coalition (Operation Ocean Shield); and the US-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) operating out of Bahrain with three separate but overlapping task forces (Combine Task Forces 150, 151 and 152). An increasing number of individual unaligned nations (including Russia, China, South Korea and Japan) also provide warship escorts for their own flagged merchant shipping in high risk areas.

Australia’s latest contribution to the CMF is HMAS Toowoomba, a long-range Anzac Class frigate capable of air defence, surface and undersea warfare, surveillance, reconnaissance and interdiction. In its counter-piracy role, Toowoomba detains suspect vessels for search, apprehends confirmed pirates and confiscates or destroys vessels, weapons and contraband. It may also be assigned to operations with the other task forces, with a more general remit of maritime security and anti-terrorism, depending on the requirements of the force commander and Australian government guidance.

SELF-PROTECTION MEASURES

As effective as they are in suppressing piracy, naval taskforces can’t be everywhere at all times, and their deployment is seen as complementary to measures taken by merchant ships in their own defence.

The best protection against pirates is simply to avoid encountering them through vigilance and early detection; vessels traversing pirate-threatened waters are urged to maintain a strict 24-hour radar and anti-piracy watch. The limitations of conventional radar systems — designed to detect large objects rather than the small skiffs favoured by pirates — may be overcome by using specialised short wavelength systems or sophisticated sensor-based technology that automatically raises alerts about suspicious craft. 

Anti-piracy defences have been adopted widely across the shipping industry, including high-pressure water cannons, barbed or razor wire, electrified fencing across key thoroughfares, hardening the bridge against gunfire, sound cannons, laser dazzlers and mannequins posing as armed guards. 

Arming merchant vessels or their crew is an option that has not been greeted with much enthusiasm from authorities or mariners. Firearms are illegal on commercial vessels in many states, including Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. Legal concerns aside, the industry fears that arming crews will encourage pirates to use greater, more indiscriminate firepower, increasing the risk of casualties and retaliation against crew members seen to have fired on the pirates. Although there is a strong majority preference across the industry for ships and crews to be unarmed, there is guarded support for the use of private armed security guards, if only as an option of last resort to protect vessels/cargo of unusual value in extreme high-risk situations.

MARITIME SECURITY NETWORK IN AUSTRALIA 

In Australia, Border Protection Command (BPC) is the lead Government agency responsible for maritime security, including response to piracy incidents, within the Australian Security Forces Authority Area (SFAA), which is identical to the Australian Search and Rescue Region.

As part of its search and rescue role, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) maintains maritime distress and safety communications services (see TAB 521, Nov 2019). If an incident alert arising within the SFAA is received by the Australian Maritime Security Operations Centre (AMOSC) — part of BPC — it is relayed to AMSA which issues a broadcast to all ships and facilities within the area.  AMSOC also communicates relevant global incident reports through an established email distribution to industry groups and government entities. 

AMSOC is also the Australian coordinator of communications to and from the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) Information Sharing Centre in Singapore, and the Australian shipping industry. The Centre produces weekly and quarterly reports detailing regional piracy and armed robbery incidents (available on its website) and members of the public or industry are able to report an incident or consult the ReCAAP resource library.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provides travel advice, including that related to piracy, at smartraveller.gov.au. 

GUIDELINES FOR CRUISING YACHTS IN HIGH RISK AREAS

Yachts intending to cruise in a high risk area should take note of “Danger of Piracy — Guidelines for yachts considering a passage through the Gulf of Aden, Yemeni and Somali”, prepared by the International Sailing Federation (April 2009), in conjunction with the following guidelines issued by the Australian Government’s Office of the Inspector of Transport Security.

• Research the intended voyage to ascertain the precise area and degree of risk. 
• Consider cruising in company with other yachts for security in numbers and mutual assistance. 
• Yachts in the group should be of similar speed or sail at the speed of the slowest boat. 
• The group should have agreed all operational, safety and security procedures before commencing the voyage and before entering a high risk piracy area. 
• During the voyage keep up to date by listening to local and international marine radio reports. 
• In South East Asia, the ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre website provides incident alerts and reports for the region (recaap.org).
• Maintain SOLAS navigation lights at night and in restricted visibility but keep other lighting to a minimum to avoid alerting potential pirates to your presence.
• Maintain an effective lookout at all times and use radar where possible.
• Restrict use of the VHF radio, to all but essential transmissions, or use low power SSB transceivers for contact between yachts.
• Conceal an emergency portable VHF transceiver on the yacht, ensuring the batteries are fully charged, in case the pirates destroy the main yacht radios.
• If attacked, stay calm, cooperate and offer no resistance.
• Give the pirates whatever they demand (usually cash, valuables and portable items) and confirm that all items have been handed over. This may persuade the pirates or robbers to leave the yacht quickly.
• Keep valuables or portable items below deck and locked away when not in use. Stow all loose items in lockable storage.
• If going ashore, ensure the yacht’s access hatches are locked and the yacht deck illuminated to deter entry.
• While ashore, do not draw attention to yourself by flamboyant behaviour, purchasing valuable items or showing quantities of cash.
• Carrying weapons on board, or using weapons, may place you in breach of the law in many countries. It is also a legal requirement in most countries to declare weapons carried on board, and failure to do so could result in penalty or imprisonment.

USEFUL CONTACTS

BORDER PROTECTION COMMAND 

P: 1800 06 1800 or (02) 6246 1325

E: amifc@customs.gov.au

W: customs.gov.au

RECAAP

21 Media Circle

#05-04, Singapore 138562

P: +65 6376 3063

W: recaap.org

AMSA RESCUE COORDINATION CENTRE

P: 1800 641 792 or (02) 6230 6811

E: reports@amsa.gov.au 

W: amsa.gov.au

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND TRADE

R.G. Casey Building

John McEwen Crescent, Barton ACT 

P: (02) 6261 1111

W: smartraveller.gov.au