[classicman]

Somali pirates drown with ransom
A $3m ransom is believed to have been parachuted onto the tanker

Six members of a group of Somali pirates who hijacked and later released a Saudi-owned oil tanker are reported to have drowned along with their share of a $3m ransom.

The pirates were among eight men whose boat overturned off the coast of Kenya in a storm as they left the Sirius Star following a two-month standoff that ended on Friday, a pirate and a relative of one of the dead men said.

"Six of our boys perished at the sea while coming from the released Saudi supertanker," Mohamed Said told the AFP news agency.

"The small boat that was carrying those killed and eight who survived was overloaded and at high speed, we have been told by the survivors.

"They were afraid of a chase from outsiders [foreign naval forces] who invaded Somalia waters," he said.

The group's $300,000 share of the ransom was also lost, he said.

"There has been human and monetary loss but what makes us feel sad is that we don't still have the dead bodies of our relatives. Four are still missing and one washed up on the shore," Abukar Haji, the uncle of one of the dead men, said.

Well they actual pirates get 10% eh?

Undeterred Somali pirates hijack 3 more ships

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — Somali pirates brazenly hijacked three more ships in the Gulf of Aden, the waterway that's become the focal point of the world's fight against piracy.

The Irene was attacked and seized in the middle of the night Tuesday — a rare tactic for the pirates.

U.S. Navy Lt. Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, said the Irene was flagged in the Caribbean island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and carried 23 Filipino crew. Choong reported a crew of 21, and there was no immediate way to reconcile the figures.

A maritime security contractor, said the ship put out a distress signal "to say they had a suspicious vessel approaching. That rapidly turned into an attack and then a hijacking."

"They tried to call in support on the emergency channels, but they never got any response," the contractor said.

On Monday, Somali pirates also seized two Egyptian fishing boats in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's northern coast, according to Egypt's Foreign Ministry, which said the boats carried 18 to 24 Egyptians total.

A flotilla of warships from nearly a dozen countries has patrolled the Gulf of Aden and nearby Indian Ocean waters for months. They have halted several attacks on ships this year, but say the area is so vast they can't stop all hijackings.

Choong said pirate attacks this year had risen to 77, with 18 of those ships hijacked and 16 vessels with 285 crew still in pirates' hands. Each boat carries the potential of a million-dollar ransom.