Tackling maritime crime without going overboard
SSA says that it is important to distinguish between armed robbery and piracy, noting that only 14% of attacks on merchant vessels in Q1 are classified as piracy
Add BT as a preferred sourceIF a gang of cut-throats armed to the teeth climb on to your tanker, knock your crew about and pump the ship's cargo into a waiting vessel, you probably will not be wondering whether they are pirates or armed robbers.
There is, however, an important legal difference between the two. It is why the International Chamber of Commerce's International Maritime Bureau (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur receives and disseminates reports on piracy and on armed robbery.
For some purposes, though, the two can be lumped together, as seen from the IMB's comments that, after a steady drop in global piracy over the last few years, attacks went up 10 per cent in the first quarter of 2015 from the corresponding period in 2014.
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