Somali pirates collect over €120m in ransoms

SOMALI pirates have collected more than $150 million (€120m) in ransoms over the past year, Kenya’s foreign affairs minister said yesterday, calling on ship owners not to pay when their vessels are hijacked.

In the past two weeks Somalia’s increasingly brazen pirates have seized eight vessels including a huge Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil. Several hundred crew are now in the hands of Somali pirates.

“We are advised that in the last 12 months, ransom to the excess of $150m has been paid to these criminals and that is why they are becoming more and more audacious in their activities,” Kenyan foreign minister Moses Wetangula said.