Recent events off the coast of Somalia raise an important question: How do you pay a pirate’s ransom?
Fahid Hassan, who has experience of the negotiations, says that after boarding the ship, the first step for the pirates is to make contact with its owners.“All the important documents are there on the ship, so the pirates can know easily all the information they need,” he says.
“The talks are by telephone, mostly satellite phone but sometimes even SMS/text messages are sent. The pirates do not negotiate themselves. They hire someone and often this person is a relative; someone they can trust.”
“For the Sirius Star, there are two negotiators. Sometimes they are on the ship, sometimes they are in town. The negotiator must work and work and work to get the money which is a very difficult job. It is very difficult to please the owner and please the pirates,” he adds.
“But once the money is delivered the negotiator gets a share, the same as a pirate. Everyone on the ship gets an equal share.”
Mr Hassan says that in the past, the ransom was delivered by money transfer, but that now owners hire a third party to hand over the money directly.
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“The professional negotiators, acting on behalf of the ship owners, get about $100,000 for their services and the lawyers receive a fee of about $300,000 for ensuring that the shipping companies are not putting themselves in any dubious positions,” he explains.
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The pirates ask that the ransom is all in used dollar bills — normally $50 or $100 notes — according to those with experience of such negotiations.Kenyan sailor Athman Said Mangore, who was held captive for more than 120 days by Somali pirates, says they are known to make many demands and put in place a number of restrictions.
“They sometimes say they want $208,000 exactly in $100 bills only,” he says.
“I don’t know why they make those demands. They usually also don’t like dollar bills that were printed in 2000 or the years before. If it was printed in 1999, they say: ‘This is not fit to be used in our shop’,” he adds.
Once the ship’s owners have sourced cash, a private security firm takes over.
They then hire a tug boat, often from the Kenyan port of Mombasa, which they take further north up the coast towards Somali waters.
The security personnel then board the boat with the bags of cash and enough weaponry to keep it safe.
When the ransom has been paid, the pirates are left to count the money and are allowed to leave the vessel freely.
“The navies in the Somali waters of course must have a pretty good idea of what goes on, as they have spy drones and they are watching the hijacked vessels,” Mr Middleton says.
“Whether there’s any coordination between the ransom payers and the navies is unknown.”
The BBC’s Joseph Odhiambo in Mombasa says that on at least two prior occasions the ransom money was delivered to the hijacked vessels via air-drops.
He also says that other payments were flown from Wilson Airport in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, into Somalia on cargo planes transporting the stimulant, khat.