Murphy Martin. Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money. Piracy & Maritime Terrorism in the Modern World
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147
contemporary piracy: irritation or menace?
something that was suspected in the cases of the Marta, ai Wong
52
and
Steadfast, and can be perpetrated as forms of “deviation” or “documen-
tary” frauds,
53
they can also begin as piratical hijacks in which the ship’s
own crew is replaced (which often means killed) by the hijackers’ own men
who are mostly Burmese, ai or Filipino.
54
e IMB suggested that piracy
as a method of acquiring the necessary ships—as compared with outright
purchase, chartering, transfer of ownership within or between criminal syn-
dicates and reviving vessels that have been reported as total losses—might
well have been triggered by the rising price of ships on the second-hand
market in the late 1980s.
55
e incidents began in exactly the same way as a
ship and cargo theft or a scuttle fraud, with the theft of a ship complete with
its cargo, but instead of the cycle ending with the sale, abandonment or
sinking of the ship it was retained, its name was changed and in some cases
its appearance was altered, after which it was used to lure another cargo.
56
Several incidents of “phantom ship” fraud took place off Lebanon during
the civil war (1975-90) and the IMB identified a further case in the Medi-
terranean, once again with Lebanese connections, in 1999.
57
however, the
area most associated with the scam was Southeast Asia, where the first in-
cidents were noticed in the 1970s. e number of incidents there grew
progressively each decade until they came to an abrupt end in the early years
of the new century. e origins of the practice appeared to lie in a plague of
hull and cargo insurance frauds perpetrated in the region in the 1970s. e
insurance industry mounted its own inquiry (known as FERIT, see below)
and introduced measures that were successful in reducing this problem,
but the gangs responsible, although known, were never brought to trial.
In most cases it was the same gangs that went on to perpetrate the more
sophisticated “phantom ship” hijackings from the mid-1980s to 2002.
58
52 I.R. hyslop, ‘Contemporary piracy’, p. 18.
53 ICC-IMB, ‘Organised maritime crime in the Far East’, pp. 21-4 & 26-8.
54 ICC-IMB, ‘phantom ships’, paragraph 3.5.
55 ICC-IMB, ‘Organised maritime crime in the Far East’, pp. 16 & 43.
56 Menefee, TMV, p. 126; Conway, e Piracy Business, p. 20; OECD, Security in
Maritime Transport, p. 14.
57 Menefee, TMV, p. 126-7; Conway, e Piracy Business, pp. 15-17. On the 1999
Mediterranean case see ‘Investigation discovers first phantom ships in the Med-
iterranean for 15 years’, ICC Commercial Crime International, vol. 16, no. 11,
April 1999, p. 1.
58 For detail on the origins and background of the ‘phantom ship’ phenomenon
and how it evolved out of the previous hull and cargo frauds see Abhyankar,
‘Maritime fraud and piracy’, pp. 175-83. Also ICC-IMB, ‘Organised maritime
148
small boats, weak states, dirty money
e ships that were targeted for these “phantom ship” frauds carried
cargo that could be disposed of easily on the black market such as frozen
prawns, diesel, kerosene, refined palm oil, plywood, rubber and metals.
59
After each successful fraud the ship was again repainted, renamed and sent
into another port with new documentation to look for another shipper
who was in a hurry to move a consignment. is was in turn loaded aboard
the ship, which disappeared once more. Most of these thefts were believed
to be to order, but not all, and when the ship involved was carrying a mixed
cargo there would be goods the gangs could not dispose of immediately.
If that was the case the cargo was offloaded, usually onto barges in inter-
national waters, and then stored in warehouses on land, in some cases—it
was reported—on the Malaysian peninsula close to Singapore and in other
cases in remote locations such as the Zamboanga area in the philippines
and places in China.
60
During the Lebanese civil war it was reputed that
surplus goods were stored on “floating warehouses”, two ships of around
10,000 tons which sailed in international waters and from which goods
were “called off” by middlemen as buyers were found.
61
In other cases the
stolen cargoes were sold to unsuspecting buyers via “shell” companies.
62
Examples of “phantom ships” include the Global Mars, hijacked off Ma-
laysia in 2000, and the Silver Med, hijacked in the philippines in 1998.
63
Earlier examples include the MV Taiyo Maru (1987), the MV Bona Vista
crime in the Far East’, pp. 5-6 where the authors say it is ‘unfortunate’ that
because there were so few prosecutions and no real attempt to ‘thoroughly in-
vestigate the apparent crimes’ FERIT had found that ‘a number of fraudsters
have been able to remain within the industry and later to re-emerge, together
with others, to face the industry with serious maritime crime problems’. Also
ICC-IMB, ‘phantom ships’, paragraph 10.3.
59 ICC-IMB, ‘Organised maritime crime in the Far East’, p. 19; ICC-IMB, ‘phan-
tom ships’, paragraph 3.11.
60 Abhyankar, ‘Maritime fraud and piracy’, p. 180. ICC-IMB, ‘Organised mari-
time crime in the Far East’, pp. 23-4; ICC-IMB, ‘phantom ships’, paragraphs
3.12, 8.2 & 8.3.
61 Conway, e Piracy Business, p. 16.
62 Tim Whiteman, ‘Ship held after spate of deviations’, ICC International Cargo
Crime Prevention, vol. 5, no. 12, April/May 1988.
63 e Global Mars was hijacked off Malaysia and later recovered in southern
China. See Mark Bruyneel, ‘e MT Global Mars attack’, April 2000; NGA
ASAM 2000-294, 24 Feb. 2000. On the Silver Med hijacked from Manila see
Menefee, TMV, p. 83 and ICC-IMB, ‘Organised maritime crime in the Far
East’, p. 68. Also NGA ASAM 1988-28, 15 Sept. 1988. For a fuller (but by no
means comprehensive) list see ICC-IMB, ‘phantom ships’, paragraphs 2.1 &
2.2.
149
contemporary piracy: irritation or menace?
1 (1988), the MV Pacific Fortune (1993), the MV Windsor III (1994) and
the MV Samudra Samrat (1995) which was hijacked by the same syndicate
that pirated the Anna Sierra.
64
Astonishingly, each “phantom ship” could
go through the cycle perhaps three times a year for up to three years and,
in the case of the Doo Yang Jade, nine changes of identity in two and a half
years.
65
In most cases the cycle came to an end not because the pirates were
apprehended, but because they had no interest in maintaining the physical
fabric of the ships they had stolen; consequently the critical components,
such as the engines, deteriorated to the point where the ships became unus-
able commercially. is was the moment when they could begin a new life
smuggling people, guns or drugs.
66
Over the course of their working lives
each “phantom ship” could generate millions of dollars of revenue—the
IMB estimates $50 million annually—for the gangs involved.
67
While such
events were relatively rare they took place regularly and at a frequency that
64 ICC International Maritime Bureau. ‘Solving the problems of piracy and phan-
tom Ships’. October 1997, paragraph 2.
65 p. Mukundan. Interview with author, April 2004. On the Doo Yang Jade see p.
Mukundan, ‘Cargo frauds’, presentation to the International union of Marine
Insurers Annual Conference, London, 10-14 Sept. 2000; hepburn, e Black
Flag, pp. 293-7 and ICC-IMB, ‘Organised maritime crime in the Far East’, pp.
70-1. In contrast, the panama-registered Natris, which was hijacked in 2002,
traded successfully as the Belize-registered Paulijing for three years before it
was apprehended in 2005: Marcus hand, ‘Flags of convenience are ‘assisting
criminals’’, Lloyd’s List, 3 Nov. 2005.
66 p. Mukundan, interview with author, April 2004. See also OECD, Security in
Maritime Transport, p. 14; Chalk, Grey-Area Phenomena in Southeast Asia, p. 32;
Bertil Linter, Blood Brothers: e Criminal Underworld of Asia, New York: pal-
grave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 302-3; ‘phantom vessels the latest tactic in Asian
piracy’, South China Morning Post, 22 July 1994; and Kevin Sullivan and Mary
Jordan, ‘high-tec pirates ravage Asian seas’, Washington Post, 5 July 1999. For
published descriptions of the ‘phantom ship phenomenon’ and cargo scams see
Burnett, Dangerous Waters, pp. 218-19; ‘Dead men tell no tales’; Greg Torode,
‘probe into stolen ship racket leads to hK firm’, South China Morning Post, 25
July 1994. See also ‘Organised crime takes to the high seas, ICC report finds’,
ICC News report, 4 Feb. 2002. Samuel pyeatt Menefee also notes that the gangs
involved usually have a wide range of criminal interests: Menefee, TMV, p. 127,
a point amplified by Langewiesche, e Outlaw Sea, pp. 51-2.
67 IMB earnings estimate quoted in Chalk, ‘Maritime piracy: A global overview’,
p. 49; e Economist suggested $40 million; ‘Dead men tell no tales’; Ali M.
Koknar, ‘piracy and terrorism are joining forces and creating troubled waters
for the maritime industry’, Security Management Online, June 2004, suggests
that the ‘take’ from each hijacking may range from $8 million up to $200
million and that, as a consequence, such hijackings are very much the work of
organised criminal gangs.
150
small boats, weak states, dirty money
increased until it reached the 2002 peak.
68
Why they stopped is unknown.
e assumption was that, like the hijacked cargoes, most of the “phantom
ship” cargoes also ended up in China and therefore the Chinese authorities
put a stop to the practice while at the same time refusing to admit that it
had ever happened.
69
however, in January 2006 the IMB reported that
an Indonesian ship, the MV Alfa Gemilang, had been hijacked along with
its cargo on a voyage from Sampit on the southern coast of Kalimantan to
Belawan in northern Sumatra. e hijack gang had been allowed on board
as passengers. Most of the ship’s crew were landed on Tawi-Tawi Island in
the philippines, after which the ship disappeared with three members of
the crew still on board.
70
e complete ship hijack in which the gang is looking for a ransom for
the ship and the crew together has in the past few years been unique to
Somalia, as has been described already. Kidnap-and-ransom of the crew
alone, while far from being a new crime, has occurred in three areas: first,
the Sulu Sea where the criminally and politically motivated groups in effect
continued the centuries-old slave raiding traditions of the Sulu pirates; sec-
ondly, starting early in 2002, at both the northern and southern ends of the
Malacca Straits;
71
thirdly, Nigeria where it became increasingly common as
the political situation in the Niger delta region deteriorated.
In the Straits the ships that were attacked were fishing boats or vessels
with low freeboards such as small tankers or cargo vessels, none of which
had large crews or could be defended effectively.
72
Most of these craft were
local but the most famous case, also mentioned earlier, involved a Japanese
tug, the Idaten. is took place in March 2005 when a gang of 15 pirates
armed with RpGs, AK47 and M16 automatic rifles kidnapped two Japa-
68 With regard to the relative rarity of hijacking see Gottschalk and Flanagan,
Jolly Roger with an Uzi, p. 91. On the reduction in 2003 see ICC piracy Report
2004, p. 16. Also ‘piracy takes a higher toll of seamen’s lives’.
69 One case where they have done is that of the Siam Xanxai. In Feb. 2003 a court
in Shantou sentenced ten Indonesian pirates to jail for hijacking this ai-reg-
istered tanker in Malaysian waters in 1999 and bringing it to Chinese waters.
e pirates falsified the ship’s documents. e ship plus its cargo, valued at $1
million, was returned to its ai owners: Sakhuja, ‘Maritime legal conundrum’
and Richardson, ‘India and China set sights on piracy’.
70 ICC-IMB piracy Report 2006, p. 18.
71 Davis, ‘piracy in Southeast Asia’, p. 39.
72 See, for example, ‘pirates free Indonesian hostages’, BBC News, 19 March 2005.
Also Bateman et al., ‘Safety and security in the Malacca and Singapore Straits’,
p. 21.
151
contemporary piracy: irritation or menace?
nese and a Filipino.
73
e ferocity of the Japanese reaction, at least equal
to that which had attended the hijacking of the Alondra Rainbow in 1999,
probably prompted their early release. It also drew international attention
to the problem, which in turn sparked local law enforcement activity that
precipitated a rapid decline in kidnappings.
74
.
e incidents at the northern end of the Straits were ascribed generally
to GAM, the Aceh separatist movement. ere was no question that the
piracy in the area became more organised in 2003, around the time when
GAM was separated from its funding sources on land as a result of more
vigorous counter-insurgency activity by the Indonesian armed forces.
75
It
also true that kidnap-and-ransom largely supplanted the theft of petty cash
or cargo.
76
Substantial sums of money were demanded: reportedly up to
$150,000 for a crew member and up to $250,000 for a captain, although
the amounts the pirates received were more likely to be in the $10-20,000
range.
77
at said, evidence of GAM’s guilt was never conclusive. e group
itself denied it was responsible.
78
When the upsurge of criminality began
the Indonesian government did not respond, treating it very much as busi-
ness as usual until the early months of 2005 when the Idaten was attacked
and the complaints from neighbouring states and international shipping
became too shrill to be ignored. e general but unspoken assumption in
the region was that common pirates, and quite possibly members of the
Indonesian armed forces, had been behind at least some of attacks and that
the Aceh insurgency, although it almost certainly contributed to the prob-
lem, served as another useful cover for criminality.
79
In 2006 the IMB ex-
73 Vijay Sakhuja, ‘e sea muggers back in the Malacca Straits’, South Asia Analy-
sis Group, Paper no. 1300, 23 March 2005; and Yamada, ‘Defending Asian seas
from marauding by pirates’. Also NGA ARAM 2005-88, 14 March 2005.
74 Refer also to the comment in ONI, WWTTS Report, 6 April 2005, paragraph
D.2.
75 Kate McGeown, ‘Aceh rebels blamed for piracy’, BBC News, 8 Sept. 2003.
76 McGeown, ‘Aceh rebels blamed for piracy’; also Raymond
, ‘piracy in Southeast
Asia’.
77 Confidential interview, July 2005; Davis, ‘piracy in Southeast Asia’, p. 39; Ray-
mond
, ‘piracy in Southeast Asia’.
78 ‘Indonesian rebels deny carrying out pirate attacks in Malacca Strait’, Chan-
nel NewsAsia, 17 March 2005; ‘GAM says it will not attack ships in Malacca
Straights [sic]’, Islam Online, 7 Sept. 2001.
79 Martin N. Murphy, ‘e blue, green and brown: Insurgency and counter-insur-
gency on the water’, Contemporary Security Policy, vol. 28, no. 1, April 2007, pp.
68-9.
152
small boats, weak states, dirty money
pressed concern that an attack in June on two landing craft carrying aid to
Aceh under charter to the uN, and an attack a few days later in July on the
Japanese freighter Island Oasis, were intended kidnappings because they
both occurred in daylight and the attackers were heavily armed.
80
Later in
July three ex-GAM members were arrested in connection with the attack
on the uN ships.
81
Whoever was responsible for the incidents at the northern end of the
Straits, the kidnappings at the southern end of the Strait, and certainly the
Idaten case, were undoubtedly the work of criminal gangs based mainly
on the Indonesian island of Batam. roughout the Straits as a whole, 31
incidents involving kidnapping were reported between 2000 and 2005.
82
Nor have kidnappings stopped: in August 2007 a tug towing a barge laden
with steel billets was attacked between penang and Belawan by a ten-man
gang who took the master and chief engineer releasing them later in the
month after a ransom had been paid.
83
It is assumed, furthermore, that
many other incidents were never notified out of concern for the captives’
safety as crew members were reportedly killed when ransom demands were
not met.
84
is points to another important difference between kidnap-
pings in Southeast Asia and Somalia: in Somalia victims lives have been
threatened only rarely because they could be easily held captive in one place
for months if necessary without any fear that they would escape or be res-
cued.
85
In Southeast Asia they needed to be moved regularly to avoid de-
80 ‘piracy attacks spark crew concerns’, Fairplay, 5 July 2006; Marcus hand, ‘pi-
racy experts fear Malacca Strait attacks will set new kidnap agenda’, Lloyd’s List,
12 July 2006. According to the NGA report, the pirates who assaulted the land-
ing ships claimed to be GAM. NGA ASAM 2006-165, 3 July 2006.
81 ‘Indonesian navy arrests tsunami aid pirates in Aceh’, Reuters, 26 July 2006;
‘Rebels became Malacca pirates’.
82 Davis, ‘piracy in Southeast Asia’, p. 39.
83 NGA ASAM 2007-204 , 13 Aug. 2007. Also Marcus hand, ‘pirates kidnap
tug crew in Malacca Strait’, Lloyd’s List, 14 Aug. 2007; ‘pirates free Indonesian
sailors’, ABC Radio Australia, 27 Aug. 2007.
84 Reports on crew members being killed can be found in Marcus hand
, ‘piracy
attacks leave owners facing ransom cover dilemma’, Lloyd’s List, 24 June 2005;
Stephen Fidler and Arlen harris, ‘Attacks are raising security and insurance
concerns’, Financial Times, 23 June 2005; Simon Montlake, ‘pirates ahead!’
Christian Science Monitor, 18 March 2004.
85 In July 2007 there were reports that a crew member of a Taiwanese trawler,
the Ching Fong Hwa 168, had been killed because the pirates had become im-
patient about the ransom negotiations: ONI, Worldwide reats to Shipping
Mariner Warning Information, 11 July 2007, paragraph h.7. is report was
153
contemporary piracy: irritation or menace?
tection. e crew of the Idaten was moved from boat to boat and then be-
tween various small islands, including one that was described as “isolated”,
which was possibly in Indonesia, then forced to trek through jungle before
finally being released off southern ailand six days after the hijacking took
place, once the ransom of $461,000 had been paid.
86
It is likely that only a
well-organised and well-resourced organisation with good negotiating skills
and an international spread could have executed such an operation success-
fully.
87
Consequently, the longer kidnapped crews were held the greater the
risk became. Any deal for their release usually had to be concluded within
a few weeks, after which the likelihood they would be killed increased.
e probability, therefore, is that because hijacking Western and Japanese
seafarers can draw unwelcome publicity, and despite the example of the
Idaten, most of the incidents in the Straits of Malacca involved “local”
kidnappings and “local-to-local” negotiations.
88
Environmental risk. Because common piracy is unguided and uncoordi-
nated and therefore more accident-prone, it presents a potentially greater
threat of disruption to economically vital waterways, and of environmental
damage to the fishing grounds and fragile ecosystems that adjoin shipping
channels in many regions, than organised piracy.
89
Common pirates tend
to raid ships. If these raids occur when the ship is underway the crews can
be distracted such that control of the ship is lost for a time. In other cases,
when crews have been imprisoned and have only been able to free them-
confirmed subsequently, making it the first incident when Somali pirates in-
tentionally killed a hostage since piracy emerged as a serious problem on the
central east coast in 2005. For a full account of the incident see ‘Survivors of
pirate attack speak out’, AP, 15 Nov. 2007.
86 Manuel L. Quezon, III, ‘Could terrorists use the strait of disquietude to wreak
havoc?’ Arab News, 25 March 2005. As a point of interest, this report claims
that the ‘going rate’ for ransom was 10 million yen (about $90,000) which was
about what was paid in this case.
87 herbert-Burns, ‘Compound piracy at sea in the early twenty-first century’, pp.
100 and 112.
88 Ibid., p. 112.
89 ere is an interesting parallel here between current piracy and historical priva-
teering. As Janice E. ompson writes: ‘With British privateers out of control
in 1758, insurance company loses mounted. e government responded by
placing a minimal [sic] size on privateering vessels and required that privateers
post a proper security. is eliminated the ‘little fishermen-privateers’, who
were most out of control, and improved the conduct of the larger ones.’ Janice
E. ompson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns: State-building and Extrater-
ritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe, princeton: princeton up, 1994, p. 70.
154
small boats, weak states, dirty money
selves after the pirates have gone, or their navigation and communications
equipment has been stolen or destroyed, ships have been out of control for
longer. ey have become what are called “rogue” ships. In either case there
is an obvious risk of collision or grounding. If the ships involved are carry-
ing hazardous cargoes, or if the incidents occur in constricted waters where
the risk of colliding with a ship carrying such a cargo is clearly higher, there
is an additional potential risk of serious explosion or significant marine
pollution.
e governments of Malaysia and Singapore, and external observers,
rate the risk of environmental disaster as high as, or higher than, any other
potential consequence of piracy.
90
As peter Chalk points out many people,
in Southeast Asia particularly, depend upon the bounty of the sea.
91
In
1991, for example, the Eastern Power, a fully laden panamanian-flagged
VLCC steamed out of control for 15-20 minutes following a pirate attack
in the crowded phillips Channel south of Singapore.
92
In 1992 the single-
hulled Valiant Carrier, loaded with furnace oil, steamed on fire and out of
control close to the Sumatra coast after it was attacked by pirates south of
Singapore.
93
Although a crew member was able to alert the engine room
which cut all power, meaning that the ship was drifting rather than mak-
ing way, the crew were only able to regain full control of the ship less than
one mile short of reefs.
94
In 1999 pirates boarded the MT Chaumont, a
fully laden VLCC, and although bridge control was not lost it too steamed
down the narrow and crowded phillips Channel for 35 minutes as the
crew were assaulted in their quarters.
95
Most spectacularly, in 1992 another
single-hulled oil tanker, the Nagasaki Spirit, released around 14,000 tons of
crude oil when it collided with a container ship, the Ocean Blessing. Inves-
tigators believed the accident happened because pirates either kidnapped
the crew of the Nagasaki Spirit or the ship was fired upon forcing the crew
90 Davis, ‘piracy in Southeast Asia’, p. 37.
91 peter Chalk, interview with author, Aug. 2004. Mark J. Valencia also rates en-
vironmental disaster as a serious risk: interview with author, Aug. 2004.
92 Dubner, ‘human rights and environmental disaster’, p. 6. Also ‘Oil piracy
proves growing menace to tanker traffic in South China Sea’, p. 25 which refers
to the ship being without bridge control for ten minutes.
93 NGA ASAM 1992-14, 24 April 1992..
94 Burnett, Dangerous Waters, pp. 54-71; IMB, ‘Special piracy report’, p. 9 and
‘Oil piracy proves growing menace to tanker traffic in South China Sea’, p. 24.
95 Burnett, Dangerous Waters, pp. 146-7 and Note 30, p. 307; McDaniel, ‘Modern
high seas piracy’, p. 14. NGA ASAM 1999-55, 2 March 1999.
155
contemporary piracy: irritation or menace?
to abandon ship, which meant that it was out of control when the collision
took place.
96
is, however, could not be proved, as there were no survi-
vors. Fire had virtually destroyed both ships.
97
Violence
ere is no distinction to be drawn between common and organised pirates
when it comes to violence; both are ready to kill their victims on the prin-
ciple that dead men tell no tales. According to the IMB piracy Reporting
Centre, most reported attacks “can now be expected to involve casualties
of one sort or another”.
98
Gottschalk and Flanagan recount incidents of
pirates talking, not only about killing and torturing their victims, but even
about how much they despised them.
99
perhaps the most gruesome case occurred in 1998, when pirates pulled
sacks over the heads of all 23 crew members of the MV Cheung Son and
then shot, stabbed, but mainly clubbed them to death before throwing
them over the side.
100
Six of the bodies turned up in fishermen’s nets off
Shantou. e main reason why the pirates were caught was that one of
them took and kept a photograph, uncovered during a routine police
check, of the party they held amongst the corpses before they weighed
them down and threw them away.
101
Although the vessel itself has never
been found the pirates, who apparently presented themselves as Chinese
customs officials on an anti-smuggling mission, were convicted in what the
Beijing Morning Post described as the biggest case of robbery and murder
in 50 years of Communist rule.
102
irteen of them were executed.
103
e
most curious aspect of the case was that the ship was carrying low-value
96 e distress message from the Nagasaki Spirit said: ‘have been fired upon and
now have fire in nos 5 and 6 central tanks. Abandoning vessel immediately…’:
Stewart, e Brutal Seas, p. 299.
97 Burnett, Dangerous Waters, pp. 134-42 and Gottschalk and Flanagan, Jolly Rog-
er with an Uzi, p. 113,
98 Chalk, ‘Maritime piracy: A global overview’, p. 47; hitt, ‘Bandits in the global
shipping lanes’.
99 Gottschalk and Flanagan, Jolly Roger with an Uzi, p. 24..
100 Chalk, ‘Maritime piracy: A global overview’, p. 47; Glass, ‘e New piracy’..
101 Andrew Chang, ‘Terror on the waves’, ABC News.com, 29 Jan. 2001.
102 ‘Dead men tell no tales’; Langewiesche, e Outlaw Sea, p. 57; Sakhuja, ‘Mari-
time legal conundrum’. For an account of the outcome of the trial see Vu Kim
Chung, ‘irteen pirates sentenced to death’, Penguin Star, 22 Dec. 1999.
103 ‘China executes 13 pirates’, People’s Daily Online, 29 Jan. 2000.
156
small boats, weak states, dirty money
furnace slag. e suspicion was that the slag was dumped and the ship used
instead to transport an illegal Chinese arms shipment.
104
e barbarity that
took place was, however, nothing new. South China Sea pirates have a long
history of extreme violence (as epitomised by the horrific experiences of the
“boat people”).
105
Almost the equal of the Cheung Son case but much more mysterious
was that of the 17,000 dwt freighter the Errica Inge. When brought to
Guangzhou to be broken up in 1992 it arrived bearing the name Hai Sin
and in a refrigerated section in one of its holds, from which the power
had long since been turned off, the breakers discovered ten charred and
rotting corpses. Forensic examination determined that the bodies were
probably Caucasian, which suggested they had been the crew of a cargo
ship on an international voyage. Eric Ellen, who investigated the case, re-
mains convinced that the bodies could well have been those of the crew of
the Nagasaki Spirit which collided with the Ocean Blessing (as described
above).
106
Forty-four seamen died as a result of the collision, 16 of whom
were unaccounted for. at the Ocean Blessing was under attack appears
highly likely and the collision could well have occurred as a consequence:
“her speed changes and zigzagging as observed by others, were consistent
with manoeuvres to shake-off a boarding party”.
107
ere is no evidence
that the bodies found on the Errica Inge were those of the missing men but
Ellen contends that it is hard to imagine where a similar group could have
come from. It is quite conceivable that the Errica Inge, which investigations
have shown was operating as a “phantom ship” in the vicinity at the same
time (possibly under the name Palu III), could have picked up the burned
bodies, which showed no signs of foul play. “phantom ships” are known to
have been operated by crews who were unaware of the ships’ real purpose
and if this was true of the Errica Inge, the crew might therefore have picked
up the bodies because they would have seen it as their duty to do so. how-
104 ‘Dead men tell no tales’.
105 Villar, Piracy Today, pp. 29-30.
106 Eric Ellen, conversation with author, Sept. 2007. Burnett, Dangerous Waters, p.
141. For a full account of the Errica Inge case see Stewart, e Brutal Seas, pp.
285-302.
107 Comment made by the head of the Liberian ship registry’s investigative team,
Captain Chadwick, and cited in Stewart, e Brutal Seas, p. 300. According
to Frank Wiswall ‘the accident followed reports from other nearby mariners
that the Ocean Blessing was being operated in an erratic manner, and that radio
transmissions were broken and irregular.’ Quoted in Tanya Mitchell, ‘Mariners
face growing threat from pirates’, Village Soup, 29 Sept. 2006.