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17-08-2024, 07:14 PM
"Asia’s seas offer rich pickings for marauding pirates who steal oil and supplies worth billions of dollars every year
Aug. 15, 2014. —Reuters
Two hours before sunset on May 28, 10 men, armed with guns and machetes, climbed from their speedboat onto the deck of a shipping tanker named Orapin 4. The ship was carrying large quantities of fuel between Singapore and Pontianak, a port on the western coast of Indonesian Borneo. Bursting onto the bridge, the attackers locked the ship’s crew below deck and disabled the communications system. They then scrubbed the first and last letter from the boat’s stern, leaving a new identifier, Rapi, in its place.
Failing to hail the crew that evening, the Thai shipping company that owns Orapin 4 reported it missing. Radio alerts were sent out, asking other vessels to keep an eye out for the ship — but nobody had seen it. Over the next 10 hours, the attackers siphoned more than 3,700 metric tons of fuel into a second vessel. Finally, four days after the attack, the Orapin 4 pulled into its home port of Sri Racha, Thailand — the town, as it happens, where the namesake hot sauce was first brewed. While the 14 members of the crew were safe, the pirates — and $1.9 million in stolen fuel — were long gone.
Under most conditions, the brazen attack on the Orapin 4 would have been notable. But this was the sixth such attack in three months."
https://time.com/piracy-southeast-asia-m...%94Reuters
Aug. 15, 2014. —Reuters
Two hours before sunset on May 28, 10 men, armed with guns and machetes, climbed from their speedboat onto the deck of a shipping tanker named Orapin 4. The ship was carrying large quantities of fuel between Singapore and Pontianak, a port on the western coast of Indonesian Borneo. Bursting onto the bridge, the attackers locked the ship’s crew below deck and disabled the communications system. They then scrubbed the first and last letter from the boat’s stern, leaving a new identifier, Rapi, in its place.
Failing to hail the crew that evening, the Thai shipping company that owns Orapin 4 reported it missing. Radio alerts were sent out, asking other vessels to keep an eye out for the ship — but nobody had seen it. Over the next 10 hours, the attackers siphoned more than 3,700 metric tons of fuel into a second vessel. Finally, four days after the attack, the Orapin 4 pulled into its home port of Sri Racha, Thailand — the town, as it happens, where the namesake hot sauce was first brewed. While the 14 members of the crew were safe, the pirates — and $1.9 million in stolen fuel — were long gone.
Under most conditions, the brazen attack on the Orapin 4 would have been notable. But this was the sixth such attack in three months."
https://time.com/piracy-southeast-asia-m...%94Reuters
