• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 866 0

collected respectable salaries. Where are Hersi’s mistakes? Computer’s 50 per cent share is probably accurate—it is well in line with the “industry standard” for the sole investor in a gang. The salaries paid to both the holders and the cooks are also probably roughly accurate; much less would not attract young men to a job that demanded almost two months of their time, and, while not as dangerous as that of the attackers, still carried substantial risks. The only remaining explanation is that Hersi overestimated the amount received by the attackers, to the extent of about $40,000 per man.

Matei Levenescu, it is important to note, dissented from Hersi’s account in two important ways. In his eyewitness description of the air delivery and subsequent partitioning of the ransom, Levenescu recalled that one member of the attacking team received a $150,000 share.2 It is almost certain this was Mohamed Abdi, the first attacker to board the vessel. Abdi’s higher share of the spoils was not the only indicator of his elevated status within the gang—he also served as the pirates’ media spokesman, providing details of the ransom amount to journalists and confirming the ship’s release. Levenescu also differed from Hersi in reporting that the pirates’ cook—only one, he said (plus an assistant)—received a $20,000 share. I have accepted Levenescu’s first-hand version of events over Hersi’s, most of which was second-hand.

Using the combined testimony of Hersi, Levenescu, and Mihai, I was able to piece together a rough estimate of the Victoria gang’s payroll (see Table 3). These figures debunk the myth that piracy turns the average Somali teenager into an overnight millionaire. Those at the very bottom of the pyramid, the holders and the cooks, barely made what is considered a living wage in the Western world: to maintain a pirate crew of twenty, each holder would have spent roughly two-thirds of his time, or 1,150 hours, on board the Victoria during her seventy-two days at Eyl, thus earning an hourly wage of $10.43. The head cook and assistant by all accounts never left the ship, and therefore would have earned wages of $11.57 and $5.21 per hour, respectively (a high-end restaurant meal in Somalia, for comparison, goes for about $10 to $15).

Even the higher payout earned by the attackers seems much less appealing when one considers the risks involved. The moment he steps into a pirate skiff, an attacker accepts about a 1–2 per cent chance of being killed, a 0.5–1 per cent chance of being wounded, and a 5–6 per cent chance of being arrested and prosecuted.3 By comparison, America’s deadliest civilian occupation, king crab fisherman, has an on-the-job fatality rate of about 0.4 per cent.4 Granted, the $41,000 that an attacker earns buys a lot more in Somalia than it does in the United States. But given that most blue-collar pirates have a virtual army of destitute friends and relatives they are expected to share with, they do not typically experience a sustained rise in their standard of living.

As in any pyramid scheme, the clear winner is the man at the top. Computer may or may not be all-knowing, as his reputation claims, but he certainly seems a lot savvier than the men working for him.

* * *

So much for income, but what about the gang’s expenses? Hersi claimed that the gang spent $500,000 on supplies—purchased on credit—while awaiting the ransom. On the surface, this seems like an exorbitant sum. Where could it all have gone? The gang’s operating expenses fell into four categories, in order of decreasing cost: khat, transportation and fuel, weapons, and food and beverage. Since everything was paid for with credit granted on the basis of the forthcoming ransom, the “pirate price” for these various goods and services was approximately double the norm.

Khat was by far the biggest drain on the group’s balance sheet. The crew did not habitually chew khat with their captors, but each of the twenty pirates on board would have easily consumed one kilogram per day, given not much else to do with his time. The Chief noted (to his astonishment)