He identified six specific types of piracy within the last decade, varying very much according to the region in which the practice was found:
.1 There is an "Asian" piracy where ships would be boarded and, with the minimum of force, if any at all, cash would be taken from the ship's safe. The notable feature of this type of attack is the degree of skill which is used to board the ship coupled with the fact that violence is not normally used unless resistance is offered.
.2 There is the "West African" and " South American" piracy where ships mainly at anchor are attacked by armed gangs which are much more disposed to be violent than their Asian counterparts and here the targets are cash, cargo, personal effects, ship's equipment, in fact anything which could be moved.
.3 There was the particularly odious form of piracy practised on the Vietnamese boat people where they would be robbed of what little they had, and murdered for no reason. The attackers in these cases are, more often than not, fishermen turned bandits.
.4 There is an extension into a different type of violence towards ships and their crews. Since the late 1980's the Far East had seen several instances where ships were stolen. These attacks on ships were not so much for what they contained - as often as not they were empty - rather the objective was to use the ship itself by giving it a false new identity and turning her in to a "phantom ship". These phantom ships were then used to commit cargo frauds throughout the Far Eastern region. If the existing crew were found to be "surplus to requirements" they were set adrift in boats or, in one case at least, just thrown overboard.
.5 There is the type of maritime attacks with a military or political feature.
.6 Another violent form of piracy has recently emerged, breeding on the easy pickings to be made and the virtual certainty that no-one on shore can, or will, respond. What makes this case important is that although the alleged pirates, the ship and its cargo might be found intact, the pirates were not prosecuted and often repatriated to their home country.
Mr. Abhyankar observed that, whilst the frequency of these attacks and the sums stolen compared wilt the frequency and size of similar shore-based crimes are relatively small, what is often accorded little attention or interest, if even acknowledged, is the potential for disaster.
He said that the pirates have a number of advantages including the knowledge of what is being carried by specific ships and they have all the sea room in which to operate. This and the fact that modern radar enables them to watch to see if they themselves are being followed means that they can wait and commit their crime with impunity knowing that they will have time to escape at the first suggestion that any intervention force is on its way.
Mr. Abyankhar finally introduced the potential of a low-cost vessel tracking system in case of hijacking. The new product, SHIPLOC, is claimed to be capable of the instant location of a vessel at sea or in port. For their own safety the crew would need not be informed of the existence or the location of the transmitter. He also referred to the use of information collected by Port State Control officers as a way to help identify hijacked ships, to more prominent display of the IMO number on ships and to the advantages of introducing a mandatory death certificate for scrapped ships.
