Showing posts with label piracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label piracy. Show all posts

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Nigeria court fines pirates for seizing ship in Gulf of Guinea

 

A court in Nigeria has fined three men $52,000 (£40,000) each for hijacking a ship in March and securing a ransom of $200,000 for the release of its crew.

These are the first convictions in the West African state since a new anti-piracy law came into force last year.

Nigeria has been under pressure from the shipping industry to curb piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.

It accounts for more than 80% of maritime kidnappings globally, the International Maritime Bureau says.

The three, who are believed to include two Nigerians and a foreign national, pleaded guilty to two counts of piracy during their trial in the High Court in the oil hub of Port Harcourt.

The director-general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Bashir Jamoh, welcomed the verdict.

"This will serve as a deterrent to other criminal elements who are still engaged in the nefarious activities on our waterways," he said.

Asked whether financial penalties alone were enough of a deterrent, he told the BBC:

"Absolutely - now we have a legal instrument to prosecute effectively and put the pirates out of business legally speaking."

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) also welcomed the men's conviction.

"It is the deterrent which was lacking," IMB spokesman Cyrus Moody told the BBC.

Another six men pleaded not guilty and their trial continues.

They are accused of being part of a gang that seized a vessel off Equatorial Guinea's coast in March.

They are alleged to have demanded a $2m ransom for the crew's release, but were paid $200,000.

The Nigerian navy arrested the men.

Almost 50 crew were kidnapped in the Gulf of Guinea in the first half of this year, compared with 27 last year, according to the IMB.


BBC

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Pirates kidnap 19 crew members from Supertanker off Nigeria

Pirates boarded a fully loaded supertanker off the coast of Nigeria, an act that is sure to ring alarm bells for insurers about the risk of collecting oil from Africa’s biggest producer.

Nineteen crew were kidnapped and remain missing, a spokeswoman for Navios, the ship’s owner said by phone Wednesday. The incident happened late Tuesday about 77 nautical miles from Bonny Island, a key loading point for Nigerian crude. The vessel had only recently collected its cargo.

The waters of the Gulf of Guinea have suffered from sporadic incidents of piracy for a few years, but an attack on a supertanker is a rare event. Nigeria suffered a spate of militancy that crippled its oil industry in 2016, but it rarely strayed into shipping.

Out of 95 attacks worldwide where hijackers boarded the vessel in the first nine months of 2019, 17 took place in Nigerian waters, according to data from the International Maritime Bureau, a piracy watchdog. As a region, the Gulf of Guinea accounts for for almost 82% of the crew kidnappings globally.

The crew that didn’t get kidnapped were able to sail the vessel to a safe location, the Navios spokeswoman said, adding that the company’s priority is the safe return of those who are missing.

The vessel, the Nave Constellation, can carry 2 million barrels of oil. It was full when it was hijacked and there was no damage.

By Olivia Konotey-Ahulu

Bloomberg

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Pirate activites drop in Nigeria

Recent records had shown drop in maritime crime and piracy in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea, head of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) said here Tuesday.

Addressing the ongoing Global Maritime Security Conference holding in Abuja, Nigeria's capital, Dakuku Peterside, NIMASA's director-general, said there have been improvement through different initiatives to tackle maritime insecurity.

According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), 73 percent of all sea kidnapping and 92 percent of hostage-takings occur in the Gulf of Guinea off Nigeria, Guinea, Togo, Benin and Cameroon.

Recently, the organization has noted "a welcome and marked decrease" in attacks in the region due to an increase in Nigerian Navy patrols.

Twenty-one incidents have been recorded around Nigeria as at July this year, compared to 31 in the same period of 2018, said Peterside.

The Nigerian official however reiterated the need for more partnership and collaboration between relevant stakeholders to tackle the maritime insecurity menace in the region.

Peterside told his audience that safe and secured waterways will boost maritime transportation in Nigeria and in the continent.

He said member states in the region had agreed to deal with the issue of insecurity of waterways from its roots and had developed initiatives to ensure this.

Xinhua 

Related stories: Nigeria loses $1.5bn monthly to sea pirates and fuel fraud

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