• Piracy on the high seas is on the decline, and so is the anti-piracy industry — Quartz
    http://qz.com/664036/piracy-on-the-high-seas-is-on-the-decline-and-so-is-the-anti-piracy-industry

    the private maritime security industry has been a victim of its own success. Anti-piracy measures have been so effective that now smaller security firms are going out of business. Today (April 18, 2016) the Security Association for the Maritime Industry (SAMI), one of the main bodies that set standards for guard providers, announced its voluntary liquidation.
    In a press release announcing the liquidation, SAMI said that its fee-paying membership had fallen as the industry has “consolidated,” rendering the organization financially unsustainable.

    (...) Guys with guns is one measure the shipping community has used, but not the only one. International navies posted warships in the area. Cargo vessels increased their speeds, travelled in convoy, and installed onboard deterrents such as barbed wire and water cannons.
    Oceans Beyond Piracy, a non-governmental organization that studies global piracy, said that the cost of global piracy (pdf) in 2011 was between $6.6 and $6.9 billion, with a large portion coming from the million-dollar ransoms demanded off East Africa’s coast by pirates for the return of captured ships and the people aboard. The last such successful hijack for ransom was in May 2012. In 2012, piracy off Somalia alone had an economic cost of up to $6.1 billion, according to Oceans Beyond Piracy. By 2014, that figure had fallen to $2.2 billion.

    #piraterie_maritime