Just about every day there are new reports of crews being abducted from ships somewhere in the Gulf of Guinea.
The 2013-built 27,000 dwt multipurpose cargo vessel has been boarded by armed pirates offshore Cotonou of Benin in West Africa. Maritime security consultancy Dryad Global reported five crewmembers, all Chinese nationals, have been kidnapped from the...
Guard P&I warn against switching off AIS while in Nigerian waters:
An unbelievable story of State piracy that happened in the Gulf of Guinea and a 9 month ordeal for the crew has finally ended. The original story:
Today’s good news:
After nine months of incarceration, Nigeria has finally released the crew of the VLCC , who were accused of attempting to lift oil from an offshore platform and held without bail since last August. The Marshall Islands-flagged tanker and its crew...
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The Nigerian Navy has not made secret their desire to have the vessel and crew transferred to Nigeria, where, according to Stephen Askins, partner at UK shipping law firm Tatham & Co, past records have shown that the crew would be exposed to being held in inhumane conditions pending further investigation or bail.
Source: Equatorial Guinea to send arrested VLCC and its crew back to Nigeria - Splash247
That anybody would even think that a 300000 DWT tanker was in the business of stealing crude oil is unbelievable in the first place. Neither the Owners or Managers of this vessel are “fly-by-night” outfits and she was on charter to BP.
Crew is the target, not the vessel, stores, or the cargo:
A Panama-flagged general cargo vessel was boarded by criminals last Friday at the Douala anchorage in Cameroon, resulting in six crewmembers being kidnapped, according to maritime security consultancy Ambrey. The vessel was approximately 0.8...
Estimated reading time: 1 minute