>> Click here to view black market products for this country

According to the 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, Somalia is the most corrupt nation in the world, followed by Afghanistan.

The least corrupt nation is New Zealand, followed by Denmark.

Source:  Phyllis Korkki, “The Countries Most Known for Corruption,” New York Times, December 5, 2009.

Between 2007 and 2009, US Border Patrol Agents apprehended 2, 285 illegal immigrants from China attempting to enter the United States from the US-Mexico border.

In addition to the Chinese, those apprehend by Border Patrol included nearly a thousands people from Europe, 80 from Pakistan, 36 from Somalia, 19 from Yemen, 25 from Iraq and 26 from Iran.

Source:  Pierre Thomas, “Exclusive: FBI Says Corrupt Border Officials Accepting Bribes Expose U.S. to Terrorist Risk,” ABC News, September 24, 2009.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime states that the population of Somalia has spent $64 million a year on the drug Khat.

Source:  UNODC, “Kenya Regional Office: Overview of Regional Drug Production,” accessed August 10, 2009.

According to the International Organization for Migration, up to 20,000 Ethiopian and Somali men are smuggled from the horn of Africa to South Africa for economic reasons each year.  The men pay up to $2,000 to smugglers for the journey.

Source:  Lisa Schlein, “Study: Smuggled Migrants From Horn And East Africa Abused,” VOA News, June 23, 2009.

Ransom payments made to pirates in Somalia are difficult to track due to the payments being made in cash, according to the BBC. An estimated $80 million in ransom payments are believed to have been laundered by organized crime syndicates in the Gulf region, but this has been denied by Gulf authorities.

The BBC also has a breakdown by the United Nations on how the ransom payments are distributed.

Although there is no universal set of rules, a UN report based on information gathered from pirates based in the north-eastern village of Eyl, reveals some interesting information about how the ransom spoils are divided:

• Maritime militia, pirates involved in actual hijacking – 30%

• Ground militia (armed groups who control the territory where the pirates are based) – 10%

• Local community (elders and local officials) – 10%

• Financier – 20%

• Sponsor – 30%

The UN report found the payments are shared virtually equally between the maritime militia, although the first pirate to board the ship gets a double share or a vehicle.

And compensation is paid to the family of any pirate killed during the operation.

Source:  Mary Harper, Chasing the Somali piracy money trail,” BBC News, May 24, 2009.

The Somali Pirates who hold ships for ransom off the coast of Somalia are reported to have made up to 50 million dollars last year in ransom payments.  According to a report in the Washington Post, those pirates who are able to get paid are living a life of luxury in the poverty stricken country.

From the Washington Post:

In Harardhere, the pirates have become like so many Godfathers, building lavish homes, starting fly-by-night businesses, and launching operations involving well-organized networks of people who handle their food, weapons and other supplies. Analysts say the pirates, who operate from high-seas bases called “motherships” — usually fishing trawlers they have captured — receive help from people abroad who feed information about cargo ships’ schedules in exchange for a cut of ransom.

The more famous pirates also employ entourages of locals, for whom piracy is part blessing, part curse. While pirate businesses have stifled local merchants and thwarted deliveries of food aid to the anarchic Horn of Africa nation, the pirates have also spread their millions around.

Locals say that onshore, the pirates are attended to by prostitutes, nurses, bodyguards and men who procure and deliver their precious khat, a mildly narcotic leaf chewed for its stimulant effects.

Source:  Stephanie McCrummen, “Somalia’s Godfathers: Ransom-Rich Pirates,” Washington Post, April 20,2009.

Pirates off the coast of Somalia have received $1 million in ransom for releasing an Egyptian ship that was being held.  The captain of the MV Blue Star told reporters that the owners of the ship paid the pirates the one million dollar ransom after negotiating down from the pirates original six million dollar demand. 

Despite the release of the ship, Somali pirates are still holding 9 ships and over 130 workers hostage. 

Read the article from the AFP at Google News. 

The pirates causing havoc off the coast of Somalia claim to have an international network of support to conduct their ransom operations.

From the AP (via Google News):

Ahmed Dahir Suleyman is cagey as he talks about the global network that funds and supports piracy off the coast of Somalia.

“We have negotiators, translators and agents in many areas … let me say across the world,” said Suleyman, a pirate in the harbor town of Eyl, where scores of hijacked ships are docked.

“These people help us during exchanges of ransom and finding out the exact person to negotiate with,” he told The Associated Press. Before cutting off the cell phone call, Suleyman snapped: “It is not possible to ask anymore about our secrets.”

The dramatic spike in piracy in African waters this year is backed by an international network mostly of Somali expatriates from the Horn of Africa to as far as North America, who offer funds, equipment and information in exchange for a cut of the ransoms, according to researchers, officials and members of the racket. With help from the network, Somali pirates have brought in at least $30 million in ransom so far this year.

“The Somali diaspora all around the world now have taken to this business enterprise,” said Michael Weinstein, a Somalia expert at Purdue University in Indiana. He likened the racket to “syndicates where you buy shares, so to speak, and you get a cut of the ransom.”

Weinstein said his interviews with ransom negotiators and Somalis indicate the piracy phenomenon has reached Canada, which is home to 200,000 Somalis.

The Associated Press looks at how the pirates off the coast of Somalia operate.

From the AP (via Google News):

As piracy explodes off Somalia’s lawless coast, the questions become ever more stark: How can ragtag bands of Somali pirates stand up to international warships? And why not just shoot the bandits when they try to clamber aboard?

First, the pirates are not as ragtag as one might expect. And second, it’s a big ocean.

In Somalia, pirates are well-funded, well-organized and have easy access to heavy weapons in a country that has been in tatters for nearly two decades. Pirates travel in open skiffs with outboard engines, working with larger ships that tow them far out to sea. They use satellite navigational and communications equipment and have an intimate knowledge of local waters, clambering aboard commercial vessels with ladders and grappling hooks.

Any blip on an unwary ship’s radar screens, alerting the crew to nearby vessels, is likely to be mistaken for fishing trawlers or any number of smaller, non-threatening ships that take to the seas every day.