The Economics of the Piracy Industry

Hijacking a $150 million tanker costs less than $10,000 in boat, fuel, and rope — but that's where the good math stops. This episode breaks down Somali maritime piracy at its 2008–2011 peak: the onshore financiers who took most of every ransom, the guards and negotiators who took the rest, and the boarding pirates who often cleared just a few thousand dollars for months of risk. We walk the ledger on four real cases — the MV Faina, the supertanker Sirius Star, the Maersk Alabama (and the 33-year sentence that followed), and financier Mohamed "Afweyne" Abdi Hassan's 20-year conviction in Belgium — plus the $6.6+ billion a year the world spent defending against it, until armed guards ended the golden years for good. We analyze crime as a business, not a lifestyle — here's why it rarely pays. #EconomicsOfCrime #MaritimePiracy #TrueCrimeEconomics #Somalia #CrimeDoesntPay