The sec­ond I’ve posted.

I haven’t read the story this inter­view was con­ducted for (an arti­cle on the eco­nom­ics of Somali piracy) but this full, ‘uncut’ inter­view between Scott Car­ney from Wired and a Somali pirate offers a glimpse at their strat­egy and rea­son­ing.

How do you pirates decide on what ran­som to ask for? What makes them nego­ti­ate downwards?

Once you have a ship, it’s a win-win sit­u­a­tion. We attack many ships every­day, but only a few are ever prof­itable. No one will come to the res­cue of a third-world ship with an Indian or African crew, so we release them imme­di­ately. But if the ship is from West­ern coun­try or with valu­able cargo like oil, weapons or … then it’s like win­ning a lot­tery jack­pot. We begin ask­ing a high price and then go down until we agree on a price.

The pirate answers ques­tions on how ran­soms are nego­ti­ated; how mis­sions are financed, organ­ised and exe­cuted; when they will kill hostages; and how they occa­sion­ally use pub­lic pres­sure as lever­age in obtain­ing higher ran­soms (by con­tact­ing the world media themselves).