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“Pirates are not Robin Hoods” or terrorists. Misconceptions challenged

(BRUSSELS2) A seminar, organized by the IHEDN - the (French) Institute for Advanced National Defense Studies - around maritime piracy, afternoon - one of the first of its kind in Brussels - brought together, on Tuesday, civilian (from the Commission, experts or companies) and military (French, British, Swedish, EUNAVFOR, etc.) stakeholders.


They are not Robin Hoods

A particularly interesting point, which shatters some received ideas, was made on the financial circuits and the organization of the groups of pirates. The Pirates "are not Robin Hoods as they would have you believe“, explained an official of EUNAVFOR (the EU anti-piracy operation). "They don't come to fight against illegal fishing. Honestly, who would go fishing in such dangerous areas? No, it's just organized crime."

Pirates are strictly organized, hierarchical

"It is a group of about 300 people, 100 on the boats, led by a committee, which decides on the attacks. There are agreements to preserve territories and targets“explains one of the specialists at the European Commission who closely follows the piracy cases off the coast of Somalia. "The sharing of the money is planned before each operation according to a well-defined plan. When they return with a ransom, the committee shares the currency, with a document which specifies the rank and the force. ... And issuance of a received." Everything is very organized, methodically. Not surprising, explains another speaker as an aside. "We know that several of these pirates are former officers of the Somali navy, trained in the Soviet school particularly".

Where is the money going?

« The first destination is to upgrade equipment and weapons. We see an improvement in weapons. There are links to organized crime. (...) There have always been links with Yemen. The Somali gangs involved in human trafficking or smuggling (...) We are of course tracking the money given by the ransoms. But so far we haven't discovered anything." explains our expert. All ticket numbers are listed. There has even been talk of counterfeit money handed over to pirates. Fact not confirmed by the experts present. But not denied either... « Apparently, this money could be reintroduced in uncontrolled markets - for example, in Madagascar where it is known that the Chinese come to supply pearls from fishermen and where the circulation of currency is not controlled at all - or for other illegal operations - such as Drugs. With that we buy cocaine or
heroin, which is resold for other shipments...".

Link with terrorism: no

"For the moment at least, the link with terrorism is not proven. The question has been asked (by Interpol), to several services of Member States. A dozen responded. And the answer has been, each time negative. But, at the same time, there are strong organized crime connections between Puntland and Yemen, for example. Moreover, the region is not far from other groups coming from Pakistan, Afghanistan…"Absence of evidence confirmed by a specialist from EUNAVFOR Atalanta: "A large country outside the EU, particularly interested in this issue, and having significant resources (NB: United States) was approached. And they found no evidence".

NB:A working group on financial circuits should also be created within the International Contact Group on Piracy off Somalia (ICGP) which brings together a dozen countries. And Interpol has set up a team of eight agents in Nairobi to track the pirates.

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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