Pirates
Good ol’ Pirates were in it for gold, women and rum. Nowadays they seem to settle for cash. Is it ? How does that work… pirates hijacking a vessel and demanding a ransom. The vessels’ owner jumps in a helicopter and drops a suitcase loaded with dollars on deck ?
Pirates can have bankaccounts ofcourse. Or should I say people to handle that side of the deal, money laundering, for them. Since banks can be caught up in these kind of deals, expectation from governments is that they are taken measures to prevent these transfers.
In reality I have seen ransom payments of different nature (not maritime piracy), but never was a bank in trouble for ‘facilitating’ the payment. In most cases, banks cooperated with law enforcement to follow the money. But banks who attract government attention for these ransom payments and do not have a strong anti money laundering program in place could be in trouble. Rest assured; most pirates would not think of using a bank account in a country with a strong anti money laundering network.
According to experts, the typical pirate ransom is being paid in bags of cash. The bags are handed over to an ‘intermediairy’ on shore, who will pass the bags to the next person in the chain. Hawala type networks come in to play. Some firms have specialized in dealing with all angles of the piracy business.
Leaves the question unanswered where the ransom dollars end up. Somalia, Indonesia and Kenya are mentioned as countries were the money piles up. The average ransom is between $1 million and $2 million.
And in some occasions, the cash is actually taken to the pirates. Just like the good ol’ days ?
http://www.icc-ccs.org/index.php?option=com_fabrik&view=visualization&controller=visualization.googlemap&Itemid=89
http://www.world-check.com/articles/2008/11/23/where-somali-piracy-ramson-going/
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/102588.pdf
http://article.wn.com/view/2008/11/19/Piracy_and_ransom_payments_Risky_business_safe_transactions/
http://www.dawn.com/2008/11/20/int20.htm
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=6298733&page=1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/05/somalia
