Petro-pirates Plague Busy Southeast Asia Shipping Lanes

{{ In the dead of night, as his fuel tanker sailed through the narrowest section of one of the world’s busiest waterways, Captain Thiwa Saman was wrenched from sleep and pitched into a waking nightmare.}}

Three men with guns and swords were banging on his cabin door. Other pirates had already stormed the bridge, seized the duty officer and smashed up the radio and GPS equipment.

Over the next 10 hours, mostly in daylight, the pirates held Thiwa and his 13 crew captive while siphoning off 4 million litres of diesel, worth around $2 million on the black market, to another tanker.

They even re-painted the name of Thiwa’s ship to confuse anyone searching for it.

Then they vanished.

The May 27 attack on the Orapin 4 was one of a spate of well-organised fuel heists that are reviving Southeast Asia’s reputation as a global piracy hotspot.

Since April, at least six fuel tankers have been hijacked and drained in the Malacca Strait or nearby waters of the South China Sea, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which in mid-June warned small tankers to maintain strict anti-piracy measures in the area.

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