Could Somali-type Piracy Spread?

Lloyds List asks the question in Fears over growth in Somalia style attacks:

The taking of hostages from a tanker by Nigerian pirates earlier in the week has sparked concerns that the wave kidnappings for ransom by Somali pirates is being copied.

On Monday Nigerian gunmen took the Turkish master and chief engineer of the product tanker Aleyna Mercan hostage and while they were released two days later it has raised fears that kidnapping by pirates is spreading.

“The models that are developing for piracy do have the potential to develop worldwide,” Intertanko managing director Peter Swift warned delegates at a conference on piracy in Singapore.

“If we don’t stop this, the incentive for others in other parts of the world increases,” he said.

Actually, pirates in the Malacca Strait used to regularly kidnap ship captains (see here (2006) and here(2004), here and many more). So it is an old game . . .all over the world.