Pirate ‘Major’ wanted 2 million dollars for crew of Dutch ship hostage | Inland

It is six o’clock in the morning and just before dawn when one of the crewmembers of the ship FWN Rapide is called in the engine room. “I had to come up. When I got to the bridge, there were five gunmen. Part of the crew was on their knees, I had to go back to the engine room to make sure the ship wouldn’t sink. There was an armed man with him who would shoot me if I didn’t listen,” said driver Isotoff.

“A file like a film script”, the Rotterdam court stated on Tuesday. A script of a pirate film, but without sabers, wooden legs, eye patches and parrots. However, with a cast full of young Nigerians with Kalashnikovs, booze, drugs, fast boats and the desire to earn a lot of money, and a ship’s crew of eleven Russians and Filipinos who are held hostage for a month in the Nigerian jungle.

Piracy off the west coast of Nigeria is a major problem for international shipping, the Gulf of Guinea has adopted the nickname Pirate Alley from the Somali coast on the other side of Africa. Every year dozens of ships are boarded by armed groups, after which the crew or the entire ship is taken hostage and only released after payment of ransom. On April 21, 2018 it was the turn of the FWN Rapide, a 146 meter long freighter of the Groningen shipping company ForestWave. More than four years later, one of those alleged pirates, Itoruboemi L. (32) is standing before a court in Rotterdam. Something that rarely happens.

It is unclear why the group of Nigerian pirates targeted the Rapide. The ship was en route from Ghana to Port Harcout in Nigeria and was sailing more than 100 kilometers offshore when it was boarded. Under threat from Kalashnikovs, the crew was forced to transfer to smaller boats, the Rapide itself was left adrift at sea. Later it turned out that three more crew members (a sailor, a plumber and a cook) were on board, they had been hiding during the attack.

The crew taken hostage is taken to the coast of Cameroon and from there sailed into the Nigerian jungle in other boats. On the way, one of them is injured in a shooting near the border. The pirates take their jewelry. Negotiations with the Groningen shipping company are conducted from a hiding place in the jungle. The hijackers initially demand two million dollars for the release of the crew. After weeks of negotiations, the Dutch shipping company will not pay two million dollars, but about 330,000 euros. It was brought to the hideout in cash.

When the crew is free again and is questioned by the police in the Netherlands as a witness, they keep talking about a ‘Major’. He would have been on the ship with the hijackers and then led the negotiations in the jungle. “That’s not right,” says Major, whose real name is Itoruboemi L., in the Rotterdam court on Tuesday. He was not on the ship. And he only negotiated with Herman from the shipping company in Groningen to “To prevent things like this from happening again,” says the medium-sized man, dressed in a traditional African shirt and slippers. But he also says he got $5,000 from the final ransom. “My life was difficult then. I used the money for an apartment, where my mother now lives.”

The fact that L. ended up in court is exceptional, the pirates often go free. The Dutch police lured him to South Africa with an undercover operation from Nigeria. The Dutch pretended to be people who also wanted to hijack ships, although L. says he thought he was going to apply for a security job.

Major has now been in a Dutch cell for more than two years. The Public Prosecution Service demanded a 10-year prison sentence against him on Tuesday. “It was an organized hijacking with a lot of violence, and a prolonged hostage situation. Major was in charge and he held people at gunpoint. These hijacks have a major impact on shipping and crews.” An international investigation into another hijacking allegedly involving Major is still ongoing.

Later this afternoon, L.’s lawyer will speak.