Chapter 4: The Types Of Modern Pirates And Pirate-Attacks

To go deeper into modern piracy, here's rather short descriptions of the generally three categories of pirates and pirate attacks;

PIRATES:
Type 1: The Low-life criminal
- Instead of just removing your ring from your finger, they simply chop off the whole finger. The nasty ones!

Type 2: Sophisticated Crime Group
- As told in chapter 3 there are crime groups arranging pirate attacks, often controlling the crimes in one area/country.

Type 3: Semi-Official Military Pirate
- Perhaps the most troubling type of pirate. These could be Coastguard Patrols that may look harmless on the outside but is freelancing as a pirateship to earn some extra money or it could be pirates who has painted their vessel to look like the real Coastguard.
Almost impossible to know the difference if you're alone at the sea and meeting a ship like that. What to do? Hold your breath and hope for the best...

ATTACKS:
A quote from the Captain of the vessel M/V Bonsella who suffered a pirateattack in Somalia:
"I told them that we didn't have any money, but the General of the Somali coastguard cocked his pistol and pointed it by my head saying: 'Captain, no ship travels without money. Do you really want to lose your life just as I am about to set your ship free?'"
The crew on the ship was spared, "only" the first-aid medicines along with everything else the pirates could carry got stolen from the ship.

Type 1: Hit And Run
- The most common pirate-attack is where pirates board the merchant ship, rob the crew and then escapes.

Type 2: Cargo Attacks
- This attack is more ambitious than the former one where the pirates not only rob the crew but also take the cargo. A difference between those two attacks are that the "hit and run" one could go for only 6-7 pirates in the attacking crew, while for the attack where cargo is stolen needs gangs up to 70 or more crewmembers on a cargo that they are after. In these "cargo-attacks", unless the pirates are very sophisticated, untraceable cargos are preferred such as timber, wire, metal and minerals.
The times of this kind of attack is almost always between 1 am and 6 am when the crew of the merchant ship is either asleep, on the bridge or below decks.
Pirates almost always approach and board a merchant vessel from the stern since the vessels focus their attention and look-outs forward for navigation ahead.

Type 3: The Phantom Ship
- The most sophisticated pirate attack where the pirates take everything, even the merchant vessel itself. These attacks often has to be well planned;
Step 1 is to locate a suitable ship to use as "The Phantom".
This doesn’t always have to be that the pirates attack a ship and steal it, they can also buy a ship from another pirate.
Step 2 in this process is to repaint, rename and reflag the ship. They also have to temporary register the ship through a registration office. This may sound very complicated but there has been announcements in US Newspapers for "Free Registrations" for any ship until a certain date. Totally encouraging pirates!
Step 3 is to find a victim who is willing to let the pirates ship his/hers cargo. A shipper who is short on time to move his cargo himself or anyone with a letter of credit about to expire is a perfect victim.
Step 4, the last step is that the shipping agent or the pirate-gang offers up the Phantom Ship as carrier, loads the cargo, issues an authentic (but fake) looking bill of taking the cargo to the right destination port and then sails off towards the horizon. *poof*
The pirates sells the cargo to an existing partner or an innocent buyer and when the cargo is discharged the time has come to once again repaint, rename and reflag the ship!