Dayo Aiyetan and Theophilus Abbah offer a West African take on piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
A formidable force. Militants patrolling the creeks of the Niger Delta region. George Esiri / Reuters
On 5 October 2012, men armed with AK-47s attacked Orfeas, a gasoline tanker, off Côte d’Ivoire. The pirates boarded the ship and roughed up her crew of 24, before destroying the communications equipment. They then sailed 650 nautical miles to the Nigerian coast where they siphoned off their loot – the tanker’s oily cargo.
It was a successful raid. After just four days, the thieves returned home up to $1.6 million richer.
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