Modern-Day Piracy

Modern-Day Piracy

• The idea of pirates who run around on a wooden ship with cannons and taking over ships is very far from what piracy is today.
• Today's piracy takes place all throughout the world's waters and is heavily concentrated in the Strait of Malacca and Somalia.
• Modern-Day pirates are not looking for valuable cargo but instead are trying to capture the people who are transporting the cargo.
• Instead of taking the cargo they will capture the people on board and then offer up the captured humans for ransom and their safe return.
• Today instead of pirates being considered robbers or thieves they can now be categorized as kidnappers or hijackers.
• In 2010 the estimated cost of piracy was about five to eight billion dollars.
• By 2015 the estimated cost is expected to increase as high as fifteen billion dollars.
• Most of the costs of piracy are not from the ransoms paid for the return of captured ship men but instead are from the higher premiums paid by shipping companies to insurance companies and the costs shipping companies are spending to improve security to help prevent the pirate attacks.
• Today piracy is very common in Somalia where the country has been without a government since 1991 and many corrupt corporations reside.  
• Pirates are mostly motivated to protect the waters that their countries are awarded and when other fishing vessels enter they attack to help keep foreign ships out of their countries water's