It is very difficult to calculate the amount of financial damage caused by piracy and sea robbery worldwide; estimates range as high as $16 billion annually.12 Many pirate attacks go unreported, so calculating the precise cost is difficult. The International Maritime Organisation has estimated the Asia-Pacific regional cost at about $US600 million annually. Costs to shippers and exporters/importers by piracy include a rising rate for insurance, and in more dangerous waters the employment of armed guards on merchant vessels.
Piracy has been a nagging problem throughout Southeast Asia for millennia. Piracy in the region continues to grow in economic terms, if not in the total of reported incidents. This results in pert from the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and the resulting political instability in Indonesia, which led to the underemployment and unemployment of thousands of people.
Regional acts of piracy range from the boarding and hijacking of merchant vessels on the high seas, to stealing from vessels while anchored. The IMO estimates that 72% of attacks are committed while vessels are berthed or anchored in or close to port, and that most attacks on vessels at sea occur in territorial waters, rather than the high seas. Stealing a ship or its primary cargo on the high seas represents only a small portion of the reported crimes. Stealing to order by the "targeting" of marked containers on container vessels is increasingly common.
Piracy usually involves armed groups, which threaten, injure, kidnap, or kill the crew. These groups include opportunists, criminals, Asian mafia, and members of regional maritime security forces. Many piracy reports describe heavily armed men with military-style weapons. Some regional armed forces are poorly paid, and armed forces, customs, and police officials often resort to informal payments to supplement incomes. In Southeast Asian countries with high tariff barriers, smuggling (and protecting the smugglers) is a lucrative business, and there is a ready market for pirated goods. Clearly, there is strong temptation for officials to ignore such attacks, or indeed participate in them in exchange for bribes or similar inducements.
The temptation is high for pirates to use the "skills" they have developed, and engage in other more lucrative criminal activities such as people smuggling/illegal migration, narcotics transfer, gun-running, and so on. Some or all of these activities may serve to assist or finance terrorist organisations, both regional and international. The Abu Sayaaf group in Mindanao for example is believed to engage in piracy to finance terrorist activities.
The October 2002 IMO Regional advisory13 to seafarers advised that masters of vessels should mount anti-piracy watches, and all movements of suspicious craft reported. Areas and ports included: Indonesia - Belawan, Balikpapan, Bontang, Panjang, Samarinda, Santan and Tanjong Priok/Jakarta, Bangka, Berhala and Gelasa Straits - Malacca Strait - avoid anchoring along the Indonesian coast near Aceh which is particularly risky for hijackings. Malaysia - Sandakan - Solomon Islands - Honiara - Thailand - Koh Si Chang - Vietnam - Vung Tau
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12 ibid: p. 85
13 IMO Kuala Lumpur Alert 24 October 2002