However, the day after its launch the Ten-yu disappeared and was found three months later at the upper Chang (Yangzi) river in China. The ship name had been repainted and the crew of fifteen had been replaced by an Indonesian crew. The IMB knew that among the pirates crew there was a criminal who had attacked a Cyprus flagged cargo ship in 1995, and reported it to Chinese authorities. However, they did nothing about the problem, and all of the pirates were released. Thus the best opportunity to arrest the pirates was ruined.
Afterward the ship was returned to the owner, but the original crew of the Ten-yu are still missing. According to Lloyd's, the cargo of the Ten-yu was sold by a Chinese company in Myanmar via a company in Singapore.
Fear of International Professional Group
Newspapers dated November 21, 1999 published pictures of the Rainbow, which was damaged by the bombardments and fire, and of the pirates forming two rows with impudent expressions on their faces. In Japan, this was the first published news of arrested pirates with their picture. Usually there is another group behind these on-the-scene criminals. The pirates in the 21st century are dressed up with business suits, have an office in an urban building, and fly freely among countries. They never hesitate to deprive ship crews of their lives and freedom in order to achieve their purposes. They are indeed a cruel international criminal group.
The piracies are classified by style into three groups: the first is robbery; robbing equipment, cargo, money, and valuables from the ship they meet. The second is seajacking. And the third is an extraordinary case with political or military coloring. The IMB handles some 200 cases per year, on the average. Among them the major category is that robberies, which are often escalated to seajack incidents.
In a rare case, there was a Chinese ship disguised as a Chinese Navy vessel, which attacked many ships in the East China Sea from 1991 to 1993, robbing money and valuables. Public opinions were divided into two; one was that piracy was caused by the inability of China to keep control of local governments; another was anxiety that tolerating the piracy was a Chinese plot to expand its influence into the East China Sea. These piracies have not reoccurred since the spring of 1993, when Russia dispatched a missile cruiser to the East China Sea and Japan's MSA patrol ships captured an armed Chinese vessel disguised as a Chinese man of war. Only some piracies on the Chinese coast have been reported.
A recently increasing case is seajacking. It is possible that there are organized international professionals, as the pirates' nationalities are varied and they are allotted varied responsibilities such as the attacking group and the sailing group. In the case of the Rainbow, a ship for confinement appeared quickly just after the pirates got onto the Rainbow and the Rainbow was sailed away. The IMB points out that a China-based syndicate is expanding into the Southeast Asian countries.
Facing this problem, the IMB's suggested an organization which promotes the measures against piracies, the IMB Piracy Reporting Center which was established in Kuala Lumpur in 1992 with support of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Marine Satellite Organization (INMARSAT).
