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Author Topic: Somalian Piracy: Easy to Solve  (Read 1961 times)
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SteveDinMD
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« on: April 26, 2009, 04:53:57 PM »

It strikes me as odd how a conventional "wisdom" has lately emerged that holds that the Somali piracy problem is extremely difficult if not impossible to curtail.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, Somali piracy is simple to eradicate when one studies the problem and applies logic. 

How to the pirates mount their attacks?  By all accounts, they attack their targets from small, fast, Zodiac-style boats, and these attacks typically take place far out at sea, sometimes 500 miles or more from land.  What does this tell us?  Absolutely no one can operate 500 miles from shore in a Zodiac boat -- NO ONE.  The pirates, therefore, obviously benefit from logistics support at sea, i.e. "mother ships" and the like.  While these mother ships certainly enable the pirates to launch their attacks, they also represent their Achilles' heel.  Apprehend or destroy the mother ships and the pirates are defeated, being instantly transformed into "beach combers." 

There are those, however, who contend that interdicting the mother ships is impossible, that the vastness of the ocean makes locating them completely impractical.  Is that so?  Don't the pirates, then, have the exact same problem?  If it's difficult for the world's navies to locate the mother ships in this vast area, isn't it likewise difficult for the pirates to locate their targets in this same area.  Yet they're able to do this with apparent ease.  How?  The mother ships, as we've already noted, supply the pirates with fuel, water, ammunition, food, and an extended loiter capability in relative close proximity to the shipping lanes.  They must in turn also be provided with target identification and intercept course vectoring.  How is this done? 

The key to understanding  how the pirates target and intercept their prey is to first understand their entire operation and how it's structured.  Somali piracy is in no way primitive or "random."  Rather, it is best understood as a sophisticated, organized crime network, and the most important elements of this network are not the armed thugs who actually seize the merchant vessels.  They're but the tip of the spear.  There exist financial, command & control, and intelligence elements, as well, without any of which the whole criminal enterprise would collapse. 

First, how do the pirates receive ransom payments?  Ransom is deposited in numbered Swiss bank accounts via electronic funds transfer.  The funds are then very quickly electronically transferred out of these accounts into other, untraceable depositories, which can be anywhere on Earth.  Once the ransom money has been confirmed safe at its final destination, the hijacked vessels and crews are released.  The Somali pirates, then, depend on a truly global network of conspirators to facilitate their operations.  This can certainly be expensive, but it's easily affordable given that the ransom for a single hijacked ship runs in the tens of millions of dollars, of which the thugs at sea receive but a pittance. 

The real money can be presumed to go to those who run and facilitate the network, and these people don't necessarily have to be Somalis.  My own suspicion is that most of the conspirators are not or at least they're not based in Somalia.  I also suspect that, given the huge profits to be realized from modern piracy, practically all of the hijackings are, to one extent or another, inside jobs.  Consider how many people work for the shipping companies, work in port operations, work for the various customs services, etc. and have access to critical information about a merchant ship's cargo, departure, destination, and/or course.  These comprise the pirates' intelligence network.  Consider also that a ship's precise location, speed, and heading at any point in time are often tracked by various parties via satellite.  Shipping companies will often subscribe to such services.  How tightly is this information controlled?  I suspect not very.  Moreover, each person with access to this information is a potential agent of espionage for the Somali piracy syndicate, and the syndicate has ample resources with which to bribe them.  This is how the pirates locate their targets -- it's how I would do it. 

After obtaining such information as a ship's ownership, registry, manifest, origin, destination, geolocation, speed, and heading, the inside agent can simply forward it all via email to an anonymous (e.g. hotmail) account anywhere on Earth.  The syndicate's command and control network will then plot the target's course, and position its assets (mother ships) at sea so as to maximize the likelihood of intercept.  Then, at the opportune moment, they will give the order to attack.  How, though, are the mother ships notified?  This can be done via radio, HF or VHF.  Alternately, it can also be done via INMARSAT -- International Marine Satellite telephone.  If done using INMARSAT, the pirates' command and control personnel needn't be in Somalia at all -- they can operate stealthily from practically anywhere in the world. 

If all goes well, the target ship will in a matter of hours be in their custody.  On the other hand, if things go poorly, there's little downside.  Most often, the pirates will simply return to their mother ship to await further opportunities if unsuccessful.  If any are killed or captured, they represent an insignificant loss.  There are multitudes back in Somalia eager to take their places and those captured don't know enough to be any threat to those running the syndicate.  Being a low risk, high reward undertaking, is it any wonder that piracy is on the rise? 

Now that we understand the pirates' organization and how they conduct their operations, we're in a good position to defeat them.  The way to do this is to simultaneously attack their logistics support, their intelligence network, and their financial services.  The mother ships are vulnerable to detection and geolocation by virtue of their Command, Control, & Communications.  Targeting them with naval assets will immediately reduce the pirates' operational effectiveness.  Attacking the pirates' intelligence network will over time increasingly deny them situational awareness -- further decreasing their effectiveness -- and can eventually compromise the identities of syndicate's leaders, exposing them to arrest or assassination.  This can be done through a comprehensive program of maritime security:  1) Restricted access to information, 2) Increased personnel accountability, 3) Background checks, and 4) Active counter-intelligence.  Finally, working to increase banking transparency through new laws and treaties can undermine the financial anonymity that international criminals currently enjoy, thus denying them the profits that motivate their illegal conduct. 
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WhiskeyGirl
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« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2009, 06:01:06 PM »

Didn't people using Google Earth find 'secret' naval bases?  Subs?  Don't we have tracking systems? 

Wouldn't it be possible to keep track of ships that seem to linger in the area?
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jjayinthemorning
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« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2009, 10:03:38 PM »

Islamic terrorism isn't going to go away anytime soon.
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SteveDinMD
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« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2009, 12:21:14 AM »

Didn't people using Google Earth find 'secret' naval bases?  Subs?  Don't we have tracking systems? 

Wouldn't it be possible to keep track of ships that seem to linger in the area?

WhiskeyGirl: 

Space based imaging systems, like Google Earth, work best with specific, known coordinates and stationary targets, neither of which applies to a ship at sea.  Moreover, the effectiveness of imaging systems in general varies in inverse proportion to the square of the radius of the area under observation -- i.e. double the radius, and rendered detail diminishes by 75% -- making such systems far from optimal when used for wide area target discrimination.  Also, surveilling individual targets over long intervals -- such as in monitoring a "lingering" ship --implies a quality known as "persistence," which is extremely costly, and particularly inefficient when applied to the piracy problem.  Since the pirates are subject to shore based Command and Control, it would be best to exploit their communication channels in order to geolocate and interdict the mother ships at sea, thus destroying the pirates' logistics support and effectively grounding them.  There are various technical means for doing this. 
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Slogger
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« Reply #4 on: April 30, 2009, 12:55:39 PM »

I agree; but, we have to wait while the lawyers consult, the treaty experts gather, and some group assesses the impact on the financial situation in a poor country.  We would not wish to be accused of stiffling the growing economy of a poor country.

(Oh yes, it's sarcasm.)
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SteveDinMD
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« Reply #5 on: May 03, 2009, 11:09:23 PM »

Does anyone else find it interesting that the recent surge in Somali piracy coincided precisely with the onset of the global recession?  Consider; the worldwide economic downturn has occasioned a steep decline in international trade and, by extension, shipping.  In fact, I've read that shipping rates have positively collapsed in recent months.  Now, if a failing restaurant were to suddenly go up in flames, what would be the obvious suspicion?  Everyone would immediately assume "Fire for Hire" because of the fortuitousness of the calamity.  Why has there been no similar suspicion of ship owners in connection to Somali piracy?  Ransoms for each ship run into the tens of millions of dollars, are paid overwhelmingly by insurance companies, and no one knows the money's ultimate destination.  Could not a significant portion of the money, in fact, wind up in the hands of complicit ship owners?  To me, this represents an obvious, lucrative opportunity for insurance fraud that's extremely difficult to detect and prosecute, and one worthy of serious investigation.  Any thoughts? 
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