Ragged Somali fisherman have traded nets and hooks for rocket launchers, GPS receivers and satellite phones and other tools of what’s become a big-money, high-danger industry on the high seas.
Somali pirates last year earned $30 million in ransom by seizing 42 vessels, a congressional memo says. Other estimates put the figure at $80 million.
The memo cited one captured pirate as saying pirates take 30 percent of ransoms — on average $1 million to $2 million per boat. The rest goes to their bosses, bribes for local officials and equipment.
Somalia’s pirate scourge began in the early 1990s when fishermen in the lawless nation say vessels from Asia and Europe ruined their livelihoods by dumping toxic waste in their waters and illegally scooping up red snapper, barracuda and tuna.
But the fishermen soon found a new, lucrative source of income on their doorstep: 25,000 ships, most unarmed, transiting the Gulf of Aden each year.