Once the most pirate-infested region on the planet, the waters off the coast of Somalia are now home to a different maritime crime - illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, according to a new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 

A court in Togo issued extensive prison sentences to eight maritime pirates on Monday for the attempted hijacking of a tanker ship in May of 2019. It’s the first time that pirates have been tried and sentenced in a country where maritime piracy has been an ongoing serious problem. 

Despite the decrease in trade and travel brought on by the novel coronavirus pandemic, 2020 saw a distinct rise in maritime piracy at some of the usual hotspots around the world but with a concerning trend emerging in the Gulf of Mexico which could become a new hunting ground for modern pirates, maritime security experts said.

Pirates killed one and kidnapped 15 crew members of a Turkish cargo ship on Saturday in the latest attack on vessels sailing off the coast of West Africa -- the most dangerous region in the world for piracy.

It was 7:40 a.m. when the chief officer of the MV Duke called Captain Ripusad Prasad in his quarters to say that a boat was following them.

An undated photo of West African pirates. (Credit: U.S. Naval Institute CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)