What do pirates do with their millions?
A couple of weeks ago, a prank Bloomberg wire went around the internet claiming Somali pirates had decided to buyout Citigroup. It provoked laughs. But given the amount of cash these sea bandits have acquired over the past year, is the idea really so absurd?Read Andrew's full investigation into pirates' preferred ways of spending money in ISN's Security Watch.
Roger Middleton, the author of a recent report on piracy in the Horn of Africa for the Chatham House think tank, estimates that pirates could have made as much as US$30 million to US$50 million since January 2008 alone. Each new ransom, he says, adds between half a million and two million more dollars to their coffers. That’s quite a sum. But what is it used for?
Andrew D. Bishop
Andrew is a graduate of the London School of Economics currently working for the think tank branch of a leading non-profit foundation in Geneva, Switzerland. He was also a young freelance journalist and the founder, director, and editor of Leader's Talk, a platform dedicated to covering interviews given by world leaders on a daily basis. Andrew blogs at What You Must Read
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