How Modern Pirates Are Still a Threat in The Coast of Africa | ENDEVR Documentary

[Music] you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign these men are the pirates of the 20th century armed with kalashnikovs and rocket launchers they attack the oil plants in nigeria to kidnap expatriates their leader is john togo the most wanted man in the country [Applause] [Applause] kidnapping makes these pirates hundreds of thousands of dollars they attack the oil companies who they accuse of plundering the wealth of their country without paying anything back to the people what do you target my target is the full stations pipelines the jackets lmpc shell hygiene several they are my targets why why because they are the people setting the commotion in niger delta why do you say that they are not sincere they don't give what belongs to us they collaborated with our evil leaders are you ready to die for the for your cause god has sent me to justify the people of niger delta therefore i will not die i will leave i will rejoice with them these are the last images of john togo ten days after we left the rebel leader and a dozen of his men were killed in an army attack his death didn't end piracy in nigeria on the contrary it has exploded since then a dozen ultra-violent pirate gangs spread terror in the niger delta using powerful speed boats they storm oil platforms throughout the region kidnapping and ransoming how much do you think you could get if you would kidnap me from you at least 50 50 million naira these pirates are the nightmare of the oil industry causing them to lose dozens of millions of dollars each month [Music] lagos the economic capital of nigeria a booming city where new building developments grow like mushrooms nigeria is the biggest economic power in africa but is also a country of extremes absolute poverty stands next to the biggest wealth on the continent a fortune that is built on the country's black gold nigeria is the el dorado of african oil all the big companies are there like shell chevron total and ajib with a production of 2 million barrels per day nigeria is the sixth biggest exporter of opec its gdp 574 billion dollars this business employs thousands of expatriates rich pickings for the pirates in 2015 they carried out 73 attacks and kidnapped 62 people the aim of my trip to meet a gang of pirates we arrive at wari the main city in the delta here 70 percent of the population live on less than a dollar per day the life expectancy is 47 years so here i am in the city in the middle of the niger delta we're driving quite fast because worry is well known for high rates of criminality and a lot of abductions that's why i have an escort vehicle in front with three armed soldiers on board they're here to stop me getting kidnapped by groups who specialize in this activity in a city where this is unfortunately commonplace in the center the armed men who accompanied me get out of the vehicle they chase off curious passers-by with their whips once we found a safe spot i call my contact a former gorilla he's my go-between with the pirates [Music] after months of dealings a group agrees to meet me but there's no chance of going with my escort the meeting is arranged for by the river [Music] i need to go with these men to meet the gang they warn me that the army mustn't see me in pirate territory what can be the reaction of the army if they see me with the camera here on the river oh big problem very very big problem what can they do to me you might be a get arrested they might arrest you put in somewhere [Music] after two hours of navigating the labyrinth of the delta we finally see them [Music] a dozen men armed with machine guns this group of pirates not only takes hostages they take whole boats last year how many attacks did you do of course uh last year of course i struck knowledge and no less than 15 attacks because we were not pleased and sometimes do you uh hijack the ship to get money yeah sometimes because we has nowhere to start from sometimes we attract the ships to get money usually uh how much is it to release the ship depends on the the ship we can't even say 200 million bring 900 million for and when you keep the member of the crews you keep them on the ship on the boat or you will stop trying for you end of interview the leader doesn't want to give me any more details on the taking of hostages [Music] the pirates are unpredictable [Applause] it takes several weeks before another gang will let me talk to them they are also heavily armed they travel on high speed boats which allows them to escape the army and to rush at the oil rigs they attack their leader is renowned for his violence he's aggressive and points his gun at me refusing an interview at the last minute the pirate doesn't trust us and disappears into the mangrove with his men back in france at edek a prestigious business school [Music] i'm not a journalist but a lecturer here i teach management of criminal risk my pupils future business leaders i have to prepare them to deal with terrorism cybercrime and piracy that's an ak-47 a machine gun but it's enough to stop an oil tanker because when you shoot at a boat which is carrying oil even with that believe me it stops an oil tanker which explodes makes for a very big firework for 10 years i regularly go into the field to meet those involved in organized crime did you hear last year we carried out no less no less than 15 attacks he doesn't get up for less than a hundred thousand dollars fifteen attacks one hundred thousand dollars good business right so that's piracy low cost and astronomical returns astronomy and above all it has a major impact on the oil industry getting in contact with the pirates and getting them to talk is a long and complex process in the last 10 years i've been to nigeria 20 times over there i've built up a network of contacts who keep me informed of any attacks and of the positions of pirates in the delta i'm back here today because i've picked up the tracks of the gang leader that i couldn't interview i decide to try my luck again okay i'm going into the delta in a speedboat to meet the leader of the group of pirates that i saw a few months ago who apparently will talk to me so i'm going to try and see if it happens the problems could come from army patrols the jtf which are incessant at the moment especially in the area he's in we're going to try not to get stopped which hopefully is possible [Music] two hours later we're following a speedboat which has come to guide us because we have to get around the patrols and checkpoints which are everywhere they've stopped so i don't think it will be long [Music] we arrive at the camp there's the leader he's still aggressive okay okay careful not to fall they're pretty wound up and he keeps pointing his gun at me it's not very pleasant it's okay apparently i can go my friend talk to me before i i i just want to talk to you calm down please don't want to talk to me how i want to ask questions questions yes just a few questions okay okay cool that machete was close okay okay okay okay calm down man i just i just want to talk questions don't don't don't uh don't be scared don't be scared about me i'm not scared i just i just want to ask you a few questions a few stones okay come inside it's okay on this side what inside yes yes the pirates drink a cocktail of gin and cocaine they think the mix wards off bad spirits okay okay okay i got it all on camera once sprayed with the mixture i'm allowed to go behind this so-called protective curtain can i sit oh sit gotta sit there you want to sit face to face with me yes okay sit there sit can you tell me who you are this is black devil alias aku omega 5. how many guys do you have with you 45 men on the ground they are not all with you this time no no i'll send some for operation which operation operation for any expatriate kidnapping adc okay how does it work when you do an attack i use normal speed boots at least like 200 two-speed boots attack and we come to our camp how many guys do you have aboard the speed boat when you do attack seven per boot plus the driver seven main how do you choose your targets when you do an attack my target it depends on the kind of security over the ship do you know before if there is security aboard your target or not before you get there the security means they will open fire on you okay yeah before you come closer they open fire it happens often that they open fire yes and so what do you do when the open fire me too i ask my boys to open fire so sometimes you have casualties yes how many men did you did you lose so just one month for the past five six years i have operated just a job lost one man okay and so sometimes you kill soldiers yeah sure i mean how many people belonging to the security did you kill do you shows us i killed our countable maybe 20 minutes on the boat maybe i kill three kill five i take their guns that is the part of my job so once you have once you have opened the fire you go on board i have a ceasefire and i climb you climb yes go straight to the engine room and the captain the captain i will ask the captain to come down how much do you have on board i have one million i have three million okay give me if you don't want to release the money sorry for you you go to hell blow off your head do you target specific nationalities yes like those indians we don't go to google for indians because they are very cheap people like the filipinos no very cheap we target people like you i know if i i could help you i'll get much money for myself how much do you think you could get if you kidnap me from you at least 50 50 million naira which are the most uh bankable hostages to target americans and french how is the ransom paid i will get the cash i will direct you where to drop them i don't use bank just straight okay take the money to social points my men are there to collect the money don't go with army don't contact the police if you do every we are watching you if you make any move we kill your man yeah okay what what do you do with this money the money i used to buy ammunitions on speed boots and the rest to take care of our families because we don't ask job that is why we are doing this dirty job you come to explore it here and you don't want to employ we that is why that is the major reason why we are doing this you don't want to employ us and you're exploiting from us you have children i have five children two are in the university and i don't have a job how do i train them how do i feed them or do i pay my house rent anybody any expatriate companies are coming to operate here if he does settle with us you won't operate i swear to god the black devils i always stand by are you okay it's okay they've caught a monkey [Music] that's their kitchen apparently [Music] so now i'm on the group leader's boat who's finally agreed to talk to me we're going to a spot that he thinks is safer because there are many army patrols so we're not going to hang around and stay too long in this area and hope they stay in those positions [Music] [Applause] [Music] the pirates come from little villages in the delta communities like these thousands of people live here in poverty and unsanitary conditions [Music] no water now we are feeling hungry here there are no doctors no medication is he sick this old man is treating himself with vitamin c nearby the oil company agip operates a drilling plant none of the villagers work there thank you so much how many people in the in the room now 50 at least huh i believe are more than 50 what are the conditions of living of the of the community first of all if i may say do we have ig player company here but i believe we have no benefit from there so often now we have no employment nothing nothing they do not employ anybody of the community at all on on this uh plant a jeep a jeep plant close to here yes we only fishing so you do fishing yes we do fishing sir but after years back and up to this hour there are lesser fish in the river yes because of due to this oil spillage you're calling one here and here in the river what do you think about uh this uh this uh this people doing maritime piracy what is your opinion about this it's due to joblessness let me say formally they do intimidate us that we are not going to school you don't have some tickets but thank god that many of us here are graduates some are undergraduates but after your years in school can you go back home now you don't have any work to do what do you think you come to your mind and you can't go to the river and go fishing any longer again so if you have any way to go there you go into piracy if you die from there well it is the will of god let it be so joblessness literacy parties in nigeria expatriates live under constant threat from pirates oil companies have to invest massively in security to protect them exceptionally i'm allowed to film the security measures in place on an oil platform the platform is 150 kilometers from the coast 160 expatriates work on board to ensure their safety two boats like this one are constantly circling it [Music] on board around 20 nigerian naval fusiliers work under a frenchman's command julian is a former commando in the special forces he has to remain anonymous we're out at sea and the risk of attacks is very present his team is made up of different nationalities often from emerging countries the only ones who'll accept such dangerous work the captain is mexican i was attacked before in the sister vessel from this ship this yazcon 24 when did it happen uh 2023 of january this year one of the navy was died they shoot a lot when they attack yes did you tell about the attack to your family yes how many children do you have three and your wife what does he say or what that what does she say about your job now she she told me that they not like to come back to nigeria the salary is better but finally i decide to come back here [Music] the best weapon against the pirates is the utai this entirely armored boat when running at full speed it can follow their speed boats and break them in half julian invites me on board day and night the utah patrols around the rig what caliber of weapon can the armor on this boat withstand some problems results means deaths the pirates mostly attack at night so this is the most critical time [Music] [Music] uh that night there's no attack these security measures cost up to 15 percent of an oil platform's budget [Music] for this rig it's one million dollars per month [Music] but in this country the oil industry faces even more costly acts by predators twenty percent of the oil that it extracts in the delta is stolen by thousands of traffickers this piracy has a name bunkering this pipeline belongs to shell it's where one of thousands of pipelines that run through the delta surfaces traffickers connect to it to pump off the oil it's then stored in these boats which serve as makeshift tankers what is inside this is a good oh yeah this is this is fixed to the main wall yes from that that's very well do i see the oil is then pumped to be refined into fuel diesel and kerosene so here we are in a quite big illegal refinery in the delta there are a dozen bunkers traffickers working in this refinery which has six units like this one each with a surface area around the size of a football stadium the vapors from the burning oil are unbearable i have trouble breathing this man is going to explain how he makes diesel from the crude oil stolen from the pipelines he sets a fire under a ton of crude oil yo this is the way we are we used to start it and this will keep on hitting the the tank within two three four hours it will result a square and with smokes and cows [Music] this process separates the petrol from the other residues of the crude oil it evaporates and travels through this tank of cold water then through several meters of pipes to retake its liquid form at the other end diesel flows in total three hundred thousand barrels are hijacked like this each day a parallel industry that is extremely dangerous for these men with their feet in petrol and clothing that is soaked with flammable vapors they are frequently victims of explosions a few weeks later one of these workers died the other disaster is ecological here's the effects this has on nature you get the feeling that these trees have been burned but in fact not at all it's the oil vapors that kill them and of course all this runs into the river and there are refineries like this one along several kilometers of the river at night these illegal refineries are easy to spot however the military turns a blind eye [Music] the question we have to ask is how is it possible that these groups can travel to sea up to 30 40 boats in an area which has a high density of nigerian army units the answer is simple corruption according to the ngo transparency international nigeria is one of the most corrupt countries in the world it holds the 136 place out of 168 countries that the organization monitors in berlin at the ngo's headquarters the director for africa explains that corruption affects all of society right up to the highest levels of state [Music] response when a country reaches this level of systemic corruption unfortunately it is not surprising to see that the nigerian army the nigerian military authorities can be corrupted by the pirates to let them work in complete freedom dividend corruption allows pirates to anesthetize these security forces by injecting a strong anesthetic the dollar [Music] for two years the price of oil has been falling in this context the cost of piracy has become unbearable for the oil companies some have started to leave nigeria in east africa in somalia pirates threaten a cornerstone of the world economy shipping today 80 of goods are transported by ship somalia is located on a strategic shipping route linking europe to asia eighteen thousand ships pass through here each year in ten years somalian pirates have attacked more than three hundred ships and kidnapped seven hundred sailors these pirates approach the vessel on fishing boats armed with kalashnikovs they hijack the boats and take the sailors hostages after 25 years of civil war somali is no longer one nation in the south islamic al-shabab militia close to al-qaeda are gaining ground in the north the territory is divided into feudal strongholds controlled by tribal chiefs the region of galmudug is a hot spot for piracy many attacks leave from the village of hobio on the coast going there is not without risk as you first need to go through gargayo the last two foreigners who came to calcayo before me were a french man and a british man aged 35 to 40. they both worked for the united nations they had come to somalia apparently to work on piracy they got off the plane and had hardly set foot on the ground when they were both killed in a hail of kalashnikov bullets after three years of negotiations with local authorities i arrive in galcayo it's impossible to come here without being invited on the tarmac i am met by the vice governor of the region for my protection he has deployed a militia of 38 men armed with kalashnikovs and heavy artillery in this region a westerner can be kidnapped or killed in just a few minutes my convoy heads towards the somalian coast the road is long and dangerous the journey will take eight hours we are currently heading from calcaya to hobbio is one of the places where piracy is most rife in somalia i'm going to try and understand the roots of piracy locally and see what happens and maybe meet some people who are part of the problem so we have 250 kilometers of trails which are pretty chaotic we should arrive in hobo in the early morning to keep going the men chew cat the local equivalent of coca leaves in the early morning the phone rings the vice governor has received some bad news pretty quickly because the group i'm with has received information that there's a boat heading to hobio at the moment it may be a boat that has just been hijacked and is being taken to the hobbio coast what do you suspect it can be anything it can be broken boat or it can be a hijacked boat my convoy speeds up to reach hobio as quickly as possible we arrive at the top of the village from here we can see what is happening on the coast a cargo ship has stopped 300 meters from the beach it's an iranian boat it has been attacked and brought to the shore in the night i see jeeps with armed men without a doubt the pirates at the same moment a fishing boat heads towards the cargo ten minutes later it comes back to shore hostages are surely on board the vice governor sends his men onto the beach [Music] so the boat has been hijacked it's confirmed it's an act of piracy i'm going to the beach a few hundred meters from the boat in a pickup belonging to the government's militia the men are a bit on edge [Music] it looks pretty quiet there are children in the streets but 200 meters away there's an act of piracy happening now so we arrive on the beach and the boats on the left the governor's soldiers spread out on the beach but they don't attack the pirates even though they are only a few hundred meters away i recognize their pickup straight away they belong to afwin the legendary somalian pirates gang it's him who in 2008 captured the cyrus star the biggest oil tanker in the world as well as the finer a ukrainian cargo ship transporting russian tanks and tons of kalashnikovs in 2013 afwan officially announced he was retiring i see that his men carried on the business against all expectations the pirates pickups leave peacefully with the hostages without being stopped by the governor's men instead the soldiers stopped the local fishermen the pirates foot soldiers they come to transport the hostages in their boat a grapple hook an essential tool for boarding a ship initially these fishermen say they are victims of the pirates [Music] and so how many hostages did it take two the captain and the chief engineer and so they have forced you to go on the boat they formed them have they been violent in the hostages the vice governor doesn't believe the fisherman's version he orders his men to arrest him the fisherman isn't afraid of the soldiers on the contrary he even threatens them the fisherman claims it is his right to help the pirates to my great surprise the governor's men leave him alone a few minutes later the fishermen go back to work as if nothing had happened the same afternoon the governor summons the leader of the pirates the man behind the taking of hostages to his house here he is [Music] it's not a time for confrontation but for discussion from the start the pirate claims his gang has the power on the hobbyio beach the talks last four hours and it's the pirates who have the upper hand finally the man behind the kidnapping leaves without being worried this scene explains everything about somalian piracy the authorities have no power on the pirates territories two weeks later the ship owner pays a ransom of one and a half million dollars to get back the cargo ship and the hostages me it's time to leave hobio as a westerner i'm also prey we leave the fisherman's village under close escort so here we are on the trail between hobbyo and galkayo returning to galkayo a bit earlier than planned we left tobio this morning in a bit of a rush because i've been seen by the pirates and their leader so it was unwise as a foreigner especially french to stay in hobu [Music] in somalia hostages can remain imprisoned for years the next day at calcao airport i'm witness to a rare event the release of hostages they arrive in four by fours eleven sailors the crew of a malaysian cargo ship which had been hijacked by pirates a few years ago can you explain what happened to you please since november 2010 our ship caught by the somalian pirates in the indian ocean their demands was 20 million after that you cannot increase money then we will shoot at the crew then honor no effort to increase the money and they one indian nation they shoot at is just three bullets then they hit us and the torturers cry your family and tell them bring us money otherwise we will kill you and how long was the detention in total for you three and a half year we stay in the somalia thank you god i am alive and hopefully i will go in my country a plane from the u.n arrives on the tarmac envoys from the organization have come to take the hostages home usually it is the shipping company or insurers who pay the ransom but as they didn't want to the united nations took care of it did you fear to die how did they torture you what did they do to you to torture you they for many times in total five hostages died during their detention the day isn't over exceptionally i witness another hostage release a few hours later three kenyans two men and a woman kidnapped in the bush while working for an ngo barely six hours ago this man was tied to a tree where he has spent the last two years we were kept under tree that is our shelter it's wilderness plain land which is sandy so and there's too much air when there's too much wind the sand blow at night you you have to expect snakes and scorpions and spiders giant spiders and and and the people don't care [Music] [Applause] the people don't care they weren't being held on the moon they were held in the vicinity of the village in the desert not in the houses but there were people around the people there don't care about the hostages why because they know that it's a business they know that those hostages are going to bring money in and the villages will be able to live from that piracy is the economy in these regions we have to understand that but equally this piracy quite simply is threatening a pillar of the world economy because these people are based on this strategic axis of communication in the indian ocean at piracy's height in january 2011 the somalians held 32 merchant boats and 736 hostages for the ship owners the financial consequences of these kidnappings are disastrous in paris i meet with the director of the organization representing french shipping [Music] [Music] guard privilege faced with the scale of these attacks the european union has reacted by creating in 2008 the atalant fox the first european navy force warships planes and helicopters patrol an area that is one and a half times the size of europe as well as the european forces the area is patrolled by ships from nato but also a fleet of warships from russia india china and colombia amongst others in eight years attacks by pirates have been practically blocked the operation is a success but it has a price 300 million dollars per year for the european taxpayer a necessary expenditure for as long as the problem cannot be resolved at source [Music] so when we talk about piracy we can think that at its origins there are the economic motivation of the pirates to earn money and this economic motivation can only be satisfied when certain political conditions come together corruption weakness of the state [Music] in a world where lawless areas are increasing and the power of states is decreasing piracy has a future already there are attacks in south america and especially in asia where 161 acts of piracy were committed in 2015. so it's there i'll need to go to follow the dangerous evolution of this criminal [Music] business [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: ENDEVR

Views: 8,308,320

Keywords: Free documentary, documentaries, full documentary, hd documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), Business Documentary, pirate, modern pirates, piracy, oil companies, africa, african pirates, pirates

Id: cfh9suqsIPs

Length: 52min 49sec (3169 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021