“We know that law enforcement officials and academics want to call them that, but… they’re always like, ‘What? No way. “It’s funny – the first thing you hear, when talking to a pirate, is that they don’t define themselves as pirates,” said von Hoesslin, laughing. Other organisations – including the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP), a government-to-government agreement to promote cooperation against maritime incidents – choose to separate “piracy” from “armed robbery against ships”.Īnd they’re not the only ones who appreciate the distinction. According to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA) – whose definition we have applied in this article – “piracy” is an umbrella term, encompassing any and all incidents of seizure of a ship by force, or any act likely to endanger the ship, crew or cargo. Piracy, though, is defined differently by different organisations. By contrast, the Somali pirates – who attained worldwide renown for their deadly hijackings in the 2000s – accounted for only 17% of pirate activity in the same 22-year period. Southeast Asia has long had a piracy problem, and it’s a well-reported one: according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), nearly 60% of all maritime incidents between 19 occurred in Southeast Asia, with more than 20% of those incidents taking place in Indonesia alone. And when it comes to making big bucks off of maritime crime, Southeast Asia is one of the hottest spots for illegal activity. What the movies are missing – and what von Hoesslin has spent years investigating – is the sheer magnitude of economic forces that drive modern day piracy, and the breadth of the crime syndicates that continue to finance and coordinate these hijackings. “I said, well, you know movies these days – they have to have the drama.”Īnd it’s true that maritime pirates on the silver screen – whether they don the Georgian-era finery of the bejewelled Captain Jack Sparrow, or appear as toothy Somali hijackers intent on ransoming crew members as in Captain Phillips – fall far short of reality. “He’s sitting there telling me no way it happened like that, asking why they would make it so dramatic,” von Hoesslin added, recalling the 2015 meeting in a recent interview. His pirate informant was also familiar with some of the more intimate details of the original hijacking incident being portrayed in the film. Von Hoesslin, a detective and response consultant for the Remote Operations Agency best known for hosting National Geographic’s 2017 television programme Lawless Oceans, was well-acquainted with the hijacking depicted in Captain Phillips, despite never having seen the movie. Indonesian Navy personnel guarding suspected pirates as they disembark from the coast defense ship Suryawira I at a port in Jakarta. “I was like, ‘you realise that we’re about to watch Captain Phillips right now, and you and I are sitting here talking about pirates’, but my informant didn’t quite appreciate it.” “Here I am, meeting up with this big king smuggler, and I keep getting distracted,” said investigator Karsten von Hoesslin, whose career has brought him deep into the underbelly of pirate crime in Africa and Southeast Asia alike. Faces of Somali pirates flash across the screen, and the men’s eyes turn upwards. The first film to play is Captain Phillips, the dramatisation of the 2009 Maersk Alabama pirate hijacking in the Indian Ocean. As other passengers push past, the two men greet each other, making small talk as the ferry sputters to life and motors away from the pier.Ī television is propped above the bobbing heads of the passengers, and a series of DVDs – each illegally pirated – are queued up as entertainment for the ride. On a crowded ferry travelling through Indonesian waters, an unlikely duo – one an investigator, the other a criminal – meet for an interview. This article is part one in our deep-dive into Southeast Asia’s modern-day pirate problem.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |