TheEconomistJune 29th 2019 591D
ocked in theport of Lagos, Nigeria’s
commercial capital, floats a colossal oil
tanker. Two layers of razor wire snake
around its deck. Two life-sized human
dummies in orange jumpsuits are perched
on the ship’s bridge, posing as crew mem-
bers keeping watch. Serving as a reminder
that such precautions are prudent in Africa
are the mangled steel and concrete re-
mains of a jetty. It was blown up a decade
ago by militants with a sideline in piracy.
The Gulf of Guinea, on west Africa’s
southern coast, is the world’s most pirate-
infested sea. The International Maritime
Bureau (imb) reports 72 attacks last year on
vessels at sea between Ivory Coast and
Cameroon—up from 28 in 2014. This year
so far it has recorded 30. Although some of
the rise may reflect more complete report-
ing, Max Williams of Africa Risk Compli-
ance (arc), a security consultancy, says pi-
racy remains chronically under-recorded.
Ship-owners fear their vessels will be held
up at port during an investigation. His firm
estimates the real number of attacks last
year was double the imb’s figure.Elsewhere piracy is in decline. Between
2014 and 2018 the number of incidents each
year in South-East Asia fell from 141 to 60,
and to just three off Somalia, which in
2007-12 faced this century’s worst piracy
crisis. Under-reporting is also less of a pro-
blem in these regions. The authorities in
South-East Asia are more trusted; inci-
dents off Somalia are reported to the inter-
national navies deployed there since 2009.
Cyrus Mody of the imbsays that South-
East Asian navies have curbed piracy by co-
operating more effectively with each other.
Mr Williams describes most of what re-
mains as “marine mugging”: a petty thief
boards a ship to swipe some rope or a can of
paint. At their peak, Somali pirates hi-
jacked entire ships and their crew for sev-
en-figure ransoms. But the foreign navies
remain there, and many shipowners have
hired private armed guards to protect their
vessels. Shipping companies fear that pi-
rates in the Gulf of Guinea are becoming
more like Somalia’s. Experts worry that
neither of the solutions used in those two
regions will work in west Africa.For a while, Somali piracy attracted un-
precedented public attention, displacing
images of peglegs, eye patches and a dread-
locked Johnny Depp from the popular
imagination. Whereas buccaneers in the
Gulf of Guinea and South-East Asia stole
cargo, the Somalis seized crews and often
the ships themselves, hauling them back to
the ungoverned coast of their lawless state.
A fifth of the world’s commercial shipping
passes through the Gulf of Aden, a body of
water flanked by failed states—Somalia
and Yemen. In 2011 the imb reported 236 at-
tempted attacks. The pirates were raking in
an average of almost $5m in ransom per
ship, according to One Earth Future (oef),
an ngo.Captain mug watch
The scale of the problem forced shippers
and foreign governments to take drastic ac-
tion. Somalia’s government barely con-
trolled its capital and was unable to help, so
international navies began patrolling its
waters. Western navies began doing so in- Other countries, including India,
China, Russia and Iran, soon joined in.
Some countries began prosecuting Somali
pirates arrested by their navies. Firms, of-
ten run by ex-soldiers, sprang up to meet
the demand for armed guards. Floating ar-
senals deliver weapons to ships by speed-
boat in international waters, to get around
gun controls on the land. On the Somali
coast itself, aid pays local power-brokers to
run sketchy coastguards, such as Pun-
PiracyCrime waves
LAGOS
West Africa is now the centre of global piracy. The tricks that baffled buccaneers
off Somalia and South-East Asia may not helpInternational