Enormous costs to shipping and insurance companies.
[NMS Note, this was translated via Bing]
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Without stick legs, patches in the eye or smoke canores, now pirates used modern weaponry, launches rockets and fast boats to commit their misdeeds.
At the beginning of 2013 there were 66 cases of piracy, less in 2012. Even so, the pirates remain a problem that causes enormous costs to shipping companies and insurance companies.
Few days ago, a German freighter was attacked by pirates off the coast of Nigeria, who kidnapped five of its members. Although the waters of Somalia and the Strait of Malacca, in Southeast Asia, were for a long time now frequented by pirates, the phenomena has moved towards the coast of West Africa. In that region there were 58 attacks in 2012, slightly less in the somali coast, where 75 assaults occurred.
The pirates aims, usually assault boats, kidnap crew members and demanding ransoms millionaires. Pirates of the coast of West Africa, on the other hand, were more interested in loading, which appropriated by violent means. In the countries of the region is exploited ever more oil, which is transported by ship, and pirates running that make that valuable cargo.
Ralf Nagel, director of the Association of shipping companies of Germany, thinks that the motivation of the pirates could be changing.¬†”In two recent cases are abducted sailors, obviously in order to get bailout money”, he explains.¬†”Long ago that there is fear that other pirates copy the model of the attackers off the coast of Somalia”.
“The financial revenue of the bailouts is huge,” said Dieter Berg, an expert in the marine area of the reinsurer Munich Re, in conversation with DW.¬†He adds that in the somali coast they came to ask for up to five million dollars to release crew members.¬†In contrast, the value of the cargo of ships off the coast of West Africa is, almost always, of less than a million dollars.
Pirates are increasingly professional. Move on boats carrying smaller ships to run the rounds and they have machine guns and other high-tech weapons. But managers of shipping companies also are preparing better to defend themselves against attackers from the sea, resulting in additional costs.
Among other things, many companies send their ships on longer routes to avoid dangerous waters, and others make their ships cross these areas in caravan, which cause delays.
There are also boats that pass through them at high speed to prevent attacks. In numerous ships safety or panic rooms, spaces were built so that the crew can be safe. In the case of assault, electronic systems of the boat are disconnected automatically. Other security measures, which also cost a lot of money, are the placement of barbed wire in Rails, which can be transformed into a trap of several volts, as well as aerosols that transform the sides of the ship in a skating rink, making difficult the entry of hackers.
More effective it is to have security personnel aboard, armed ensures Nagel to DW.¬†“Experience has shown that actively defended by weapons prevents hackers get to the boat and take hostages.¬†Almost all of the ships that pass through dangerous waters have protection of this type”.
But not all ports allow the passage of boats with weapons, and for German flag vessels there is still no legal framework defined in this respect.¬†At the same time, if a boat has no armed security personnel, increases your insurance policy, since that increases the risk that runs.¬†“On average, will pay up to $50,000 in additional insurance for a trip.¬†And use private weapons costs another $50,000,”explains the expert.¬†In total, the measures of protection against pirates increase transportation costs by 10 to 20 percent, but there are cases where costs become even doubled.
Insurers also feel the harmful effects of piracy in the flesh, said Dieter Berg, of Munich Re.¬†In addition to the sums of hostage rescue, which cuadriplicaron in recent years, “costs occur because the negotiations last a long time”.¬†Lawyers and professional teams dealing with the money to place that indicate the pirates, with security personnel and helicopters take part in them.¬†Also, “after an assault boats is catastrophic: furniture is almost always destroyed, and the exterior walls are filled with algae and dirt”, says Berg.
Only in the Horn of Africa, the costs caused by the piracy around the world in 2012 amounted to about six billion dollars, estimates the private organization “Oceans beyond Piracy”, of the United States, which is dedicated to the fight against the criminals of the sea.¬†A third of those costs are allocated to armed security forces, and almost another third to the fuel that is needed to make boats faster through the dangerous areas.¬†More than one is ten percent to pay for additional insurance.¬†Governments pay about one billion dollars, among other things, by the official in order to defend the commercial cargo ships to missions.¬†And the economy of the areas where pirates operate is also affected in that hinder regional trade.
Via: www.puranoticia.cl
