[BITList] Fwd: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague

[Michael Feltham]

Begin forwarded message:

From: enquiries at lloydslist.com
Date: 3 March 2009 08:33:04 GMT
To: mj.feltham at madasafish.com
Subject: Lloyd's List: Send to Colleague


The below article was sent to you from Mike Feltham (mj.feltham at madasafish.com 
) with the following message: I thought you might be interested in the  
article below.

Pirates use all the digital tools to hunt down the next victims
Tuesday 3 March 2009

PIRATES in the 21st century have access to such sophisticated means of  
communication that it is not beyond the realms of possibility they  
will read this article, in which case ‘Hi, Jack’.

An example of their digital dexterity is given by media consultant Pat  
Adamson, whose firm MTI Network has handled a number of hijack cases.

Mr Adamson, while recently in Dubai conducting media training  
sessions, received a call on his mobile from a purported Somali  
hijacker shortly after a ship had been seized in the Gulf of Aden.

The caller told him: “You are talking to the government, you should be  
talking to us”, and ended the conversation with dire threats against  
the crew of the unnamed hijacked ship. The possibility the call was a  
hoax was considered but dismissed on the basis of two key facts: the  
call had been made from Somalia and the caller knew something of  
limited circulation — MTI had been in contact with the Somali, semi- 
autonomous Puntland government in a bid to secure the release of the  
ship.

The pirates had traced Mr Adamson through his contact details given in  
a press release about the hijacking. The veteran PR man says his firm  
had been in touch with Puntland “officials” who had offered to help  
secure the release of the crew, but Adamson admits separating the so- 
called government and hijack gangs is not easy.

This story can be added to that of pirates tracking ships via the  
Automated Identification System and to the assessment by Stephen  
Askins, a maritime lawyer with London firm Ince & Co who has dealt  
with ransom negotiations, that they understand the “dynamics of both  
shipping and insurance”.

Whether they also regularly follow the Baltic Dry Index, Worldscale  
rates, reports on the state of marine insurance and the latest figures  
from the Suez Canal is a matter of conjecture, but if true would not  
surprise many. It would also mean they would be more amenable to  
negotiators’ attempts to get the ransom demand down.

• How Somali pirates were able to locate and hijack a fully-laden VLCC  
hundreds of miles south of their normal hunting grounds is still  
puzzling and concerning some in security circles.

The widely held view is that the hijackers had used AIS to track the  
Saudi-owned, 318,000 dwt Sirius Star as it headed fully-laden towards  
the Mozambique Channel and round the Cape of Good Hope for a Caribbean  
transhipment.

But the brazen seizure of such a large ship 400 nautical miles from  
Kenya’s Mombasa, far south of the Gulf of Aden, sent shockwaves  
throughout shipping as well as military and intelligence communities.

Whispers among so-called spooks is that the Sirius Star may have been  
a dry run for either a more ambitious hijack or to test their long- 
range capabilities.

The VLCC’s hijack also revealed how close the region was to a massive  
oil spill as the hijackers repeatedly urged the crew to take the  
tanker closer to shore during the 57-day ordeal. As Scottish second  
engineer James Grady recorded in his diary, kept secretly: “Day 20:  
Moved anchorage closer to shore half a mile. The stupid ******* do not  
understand the ship is too deep draught to go any closer.”

Sign up to the FREE Lloyd's List Daily News Bulletin at http://www.lloydslist.com/bulletin

Articles remain the copyright of Informa UK Limited

Please note that incorrectly addressed emails are returned to a  
Lloyd's List bulletin board and that copies may be taken for  
administrative purposes


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20090303/7c354487/attachment.shtml