Maritime crime hits post-pandemic high as piracy surges worldwide

Last year was a period of growth for pirates from the Gulf of Guinea eastward to the Caribbean Sea, raising global maritime crime to its highest levels since the onset of COVID-19.

“Incidents of piracy and armed robbery are often local in nature, but the consequence is felt internationally when, during the height of Somali piracy, we had a large number of ships rerouting to avoid the Horn of Africa,” said Cyrus Mody, deputy director at the International Maritime Bureau. “When this happens, it has a direct impact on the price consumers find on the shelves.”

Data published by the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence shows a similar peak in pirate activity. The U.S. Navy reported four-year highs for piracy in the Gulf of Guinea off the West African coast and in the Singapore Strait. The office noted 13 incidents of hijackings, kidnappings and other violent incidents around the Horn of Africa last year, down from 18 in 2024.

Somali pirates are increasingly intermingled with other arms smuggling and the activities of the Houthi terrorist group in Yemen. The Zaydi Shiite Islamist movement has been waging an insurgency against Yemen’s internationally backed government since 2004.

Often described by the U.S. as an Iranian proxy, the group has recently developed ties to pirates and terrorist groups in Africa, as The Washington Times has reported.

Piracy off the Horn of Africa remains a problem despite the presence of a large EU-led anti-piracy mission and a nominal end to attacks on shipping from the Houthis last month. Regional security also has increased in the Horn of Africa.

With a fragile ceasefire holding in the Middle East, more shipping is returning to the Red Sea. CMA CGM, the world’s third-largest shipping line, plans to begin regular Suez Canal traffic early this year.

“Piracy remains a persistent threat, but we have taken important measures to increase maritime security,” said Mohamed Muse Abulle, deputy intelligence director of the Puntland Maritime Police Force. “This is a very strategic region, and every decision we make here can have global consequences on trade.”

As recently as Dec. 5, a Barbados-flagged vessel was swarmed by 15 small craft in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait off Yemen’s coast. The would-be attackers, some of whom closed to within 656 feet, began firing. They were driven off only by return fire from an armed private security team aboard the vessel.

Piracy also is up in the Western Hemisphere, including in the Caribbean.

In Haiti, armed gangs routinely use kidnapping for ransom as a core part of their fundraising strategy. Haitian criminals are now applying that strategy to vessels moored in Haitian waters or docked in Haitian ports.

Last spring, an armed gang boarded a Panama-flagged bulk carrier near Port-au-Prince. As the April 2 attack unfolded, crew members scrambled for safety, hiding in their cabins and the engine room. Still, the pirates abducted two crew members.

Five piracy incidents were reported last year in the Gulf of America, previously the Gulf of Mexico, to the east of the Yucatan Peninsula, home to one of Mexico’s most important oil fields.

The Office of Naval Intelligence reported three incidents resulting in successful boardings by armed gangs of oil platforms or vessels. Although kidnapping for ransom is common in Mexico, the incidents in the Gulf of America appear to have been motivated by a desire for robbery. In at least one incident, oil workers fought back by deploying water cannons to keep the attackers at bay until they were driven off by the approach of the Mexican navy.

Vessels around the globe rely on the same handful of countermeasures to protect themselves from pirates. Merchant vessels tend to avoid a 100-nautical-mile radius from recent pirate attack locations. Armed guards offer an expensive countermeasure. Mariners commonly use tactics such as increasing speed, deploying water cannons during pirate assaults and positioning barbed wire to prevent boardings.

Barbed wire itself is not always a deterrent.

On Feb. 1, the crew of a Portugal-flagged ship in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Nigeria discovered pirates cutting the vessel’s protective barbed wire under the cover of darkness. The crew took appropriate measures by turning on outside lights, making a distress call and retreating to the ship’s citadel. The element of surprise caught the pirates off guard. They abandoned their assault, but the threat lingered. For 45 minutes, the pirate vessel was tracked on radar before the assailants finally vanished into the night.

The rise of piracy has led to greater intelligence sharing and other joint activities to enhance security in one of the world’s busiest maritime traffic regions.

“Southeast Asia is also ramping up its monitoring abilities through conducting more joint patrols and ensuring soldiers’ proficiency in similar scenarios,” said Thomas Lim, an international security expert at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. He cited the Singapore navy’s Exercise Highcrest training drill.

In the drill, two to five perpetrators planning to steal valuable items board a ship under the cover of darkness. Such groups are increasingly armed, Mr. Lim said. More than 70 such incidents were reported in the region last year, the most since record-keeping began in 1991 in the Singapore Strait, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

“The 2021 blockage of the Suez Canal showed how the fate of a single vessel can ripple across the global economy,” Mr. Mody said. An attack on a tanker or offshore platform, he said, could trigger an environmental disaster eclipsing the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill or paralyze supply chains half a world away.

“I’m here in the United Kingdom,” he said. “We haven’t really made anything in 50 years. Everything arrives by sea.”