The story so far: On August 21, 2026, a Shipping Ministry official said that pirates have hijacked two commercial vessels , with 22 Indian seafarers onboard, off Yemen and Somalia. an Eritrea-flagged oil products tanker with 20 crew members including 16 Indians, was hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, a Cameroon-flagged cargo ship, MV Luruf with six Indians among its 10-member crew and carrying Turkish weapons, was hijacked off Somalia’s Puntland coast on August 17 While MT Sibu 1.
The two hijackings— against the backdrop of the West Asia war, the attack on shipping lines by Iran and the Houthis, and the U.S. and Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz— have given rise to fears of a resurgence of piracy off Somalia.
A new outlet, Somali pirates have “demanded a ransom of approximately $2 million” to release Luruf and its crew, according to FTL Somalia.
The resource-rich waters off the Somalian coast was left open for foreign vessels to plunder. Illegal international fishing and maritime dumping went unchecked… which in turn undermined the Somali coastal communities’ economic prospects”. The study quoted a pirate as saying, “I was an unemployed, occasional fisherman and someone approached me… The man promised me money and khat. He explained how he got his wealth. The man was my cousin. He was a successful pirate… At the peak of the Somalian piracy, ransom demands ran into millions. Acts of piracy are never isolated incidents and follow a network of finances and local logistics. Some of these proceeds are recycled into financing criminal activities, including further piracy acts, human trafficking, including migrant smuggling, and investing in militias and military capacities on land in Somalia. Besides, money is invested in the khat trade, particularly in Kenya. However, maritime observers have expressed concern that the ongoing conflict in the Persian Gulf, the attack on ships in the Red Sea by the Houthis, and the diversion of marine traffic via the Cape of Good Hope to avoid conflict may be contributing to the resurgence of piracy.
In 1991, the Somali government collapsed, and with it disappeared the navy and the coastal security apparatus. ‘The Pirate Trails Study’ by the World Bank in 2013 noted that “the fishermen off the Somali coast could no longer be protected from foreign ships fishing in Somali waters. The 2013 World Bank study interviewed pirates who recounted their personal stories and said how the skiff and the rifle offered an easy, and perhaps only, way out of poverty. “$339 million dollars to $413 million dollars was claimed in ransoms between April 2005 and December 2012 for pirate acts off the Horn of Africa, according to World Bank study. Coordination between the Somalian government that was formed in 2012 and international naval forces brought about a decline in piracy.
The report said that “pirate financiers” are vital to the network. These “money kingpins” are investors and the biggest beneficiaries of piracy. “On average, they collect from 30% to 50% of total ransom, working individually or as a group,” it said. ‘The Pirate Trails’ study said the ill-gotten proceeds of piracy are mostly invested within Somalia.
