Piracy Stock Exchange?

[HobieFan]

Apparently, the pirates in Somalia are selling shares in their piracy activities.

Locals featured in the article went from making hundreds per year, to $75,000 per year for contributing a weapon or RPG to "the cause".

The local government is complicit, as they get shares of the take as well for things like roads, hospitals and schools.

The national government can't do anything about it because they're tied down fighting Islamic hardliner groups in the capital area.

Interesting article on Reuters.

Somali sea gangs lure investors at pirate lair | Reuters

[David M]

Where can I get a copy of their 10Q statement?

[totemthepole]

Always in the history of piracy, it has been impossible without government collusion.

It's kind of tough to pull up and say "psst, wanna buy 50,000 tons of crude oil, cheap?"

[HobieFan]

Originally Posted by totemthepole

Always in the history of piracy, it has been impossible without government collusion.

It's kind of tough to pull up and say "psst, wanna buy 50,000 tons of crude oil, cheap?"

True, but you do realize that most of the time, the pirates don't keep the gear they steal. They simply ransom it for less than its actual value, which ensures that the Insurance companies will pay up.

If you were to make it illegal to trade with any company that paid ransom to pirates/terrorists, the market would quickly dry up.

Sounds like the Dutch captured a gang of them yesterday. The EU especially is really stepping up patrols recently and a number of big ships are carrying heavily armored guards. Once a few dozen of them go down in bloody massacres AND the insurance companies are prevented from paying out, the willingness to fling themselves into low paying suicide missions will be quite a bit lower, one might thing.

but.. maybe i'm wrong.

[warmbeer]

Not sure if this falls under the heading 'making a living' in our world but...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/pirate-stock-exchange-helps-fund-hijackings-in-somalia/article1391004/

Check out the CG photos, how do you tell the good guys from the bad.

[Jim Cate]

G'Day All,

A nasty business all in all, from the pirates themselves to all the others who profit from their activities.

And one such group of profiteers may just be the insurers themselves! How? Well, as I understand it, ships transiting the "pirate alley" are charged a very large increment on their normal insurance premium. There are one hell of a lot of ships involved, and only a very tiny fraction actually get captured and ransomed. Thus, big profits for the insurance companies.

It would really be interesting to see the insurers P/L statements for this period!

Cheers,

[ess105]

State beneficiaries of piracy??? Sounds very much like European history. Most of the pirates on the high seas seem to have been under the flag of their sovereign who received good incomes from the pirates activities. Interesting to learn here in Cartagena that the gold plundered during the last successful French sacking of the city went to pay for Versailles. Being here in Latin America one hears very different descriptions of Drake from the English hero I was taught about as I grew up.

[shadow]

I'm with Jim Cate and ess105 on this, I thought it was common knowledge that insurance, large corporates and governments were the real pirates of the world?!? Insurance companies grab all the cash they can and when it's time to pay up, they spend more time and energy to find loop holes to NOT pay out on a legitimate claim. Large Corps, will dump toxic whatever into all points of the world and IF they get caught, they pay a small fine and continue. Their fine is usually a fraction of 1% of their overall profits, so it's all about numbers.

And the Govs, they just do what they want, like stealing your land and who can the people complain to, them?!? I think not.

These pirates are small time crook hacks when you really look at the white collar crimes that envelope us everyday.. I'm just being general as I know that everyone has some story about someone falling prey to one of the groups mentioned earlier..

Just my opinion..