REDIRECTION OF EU-BOUND TRAFFIC SPAWNS RESURGENCE OF SOMALI PIRACY, MORE CHAOS FOR TBML LAUNDRYMEN TO EXPLOIT?

If you thought that things couldn't get worse in the Arabian Sea & Indian Ocean, due to the Houthi attacks in shipping en route to European consumers, surprise, they just did. The redirection of most of the EU-destination shipping container traffic around the Cape of Good Hope, to reduce risk, has exposed them to a renewed threat from Somali pirates. Southbound shipping, which now is passing through remote Indian Ocean area not patrolled by naval or other armed forces, is being targeted anew in 2024 by what are referred to in the industry as Pirate Action Groups, or PAG.

Somali hijackers, who have been quiet in recent years, have increased their activities in the past three months. They are, as clever career criminals are apt to do, always planning ahead several moves. Note on the accompanying map that they have of late taken to violently taking possession of local shipping dhows off the Somali coastline. Do they plan to use these acquisitions to attack the large southbound shipping traffic? We cannot guarantee that it will happen, but all signs point to greatly increased risk of organized piracy in the same area where it bedeviled the world's shippers in recent years.

The area's instability is becoming a boon for anyone who will benefit from the inability of compliance officers to make sense of the wide variations in shipping charges, insurance costs, spot rates, damage claims (which could be bogus, but brought to muddy the water), and other extraordinary and abnormal costs that may be imposed upon the transport of goods. Enter individuals happily engaged in Trade-Based Money Laundering, who will take full advantage of these troubled times; don't let them snow you on the proceeds of crime posing as large, unanticipated costs of this year's shipping nightmare.