Britney Spears is being used as a secret weapon to fight Somali pirates.
The singer’s hits are being blasted out by tanker crews to deter kidnap attacks, merchant navy officer Rachel Owens has told Metro UK.
Spears’s chart-toppers “Oops! I Did It Again and Baby One More Time” have proved to be the most effective at keeping the bandits at bay.
Second Officer Owens, who works on supertankers off the east coast of Africa, said: “Her songs were chosen by the security team because they thought the pirates would hate them most.
“These guys can’t stand Western culture or music, making Britney’s hits perfect.”
Ships in the region are in constant danger from gun-toting pirates boarding and kidnapping crews for million-dollar ransoms.
Ms. Owens, who regularly guides huge tankers through the waters, said the ship’s speakers can be aimed solely at the pirates so as not to disturb the crew.
“It’s so effective the ship’s security rarely needs to resort to firing guns,” she said.
Britney may be one reason pirate attacks in the region have fallen this year.
In the first half of 2013, there have been just eight pirate attacks off Somalian, according to figured from the International Maritime Bureau.
Meanwhile, Indonesia has experienced a more than 50 per cent surge in pirate attacks in the same period.
Of the 48 attacks reported, 43 involved pirates boarding vessels and assaulting the crew, the IMB said.
There also has been a surge in piracy off west Africa, with a series of violent attacks this year.
In the latest incident, pirates attacked a commercial ship near the coast of Nigeria and kidnapped two US mariners last week.
The captain and an engineer were taken away from the offshore supply vessel C-Retriever during an attack in international waters off the Gulf of Guinea.
This article originally appeared on News.com.au.