Pirates Have Returned To The Caribbean

A fisherman rides in a boat where some have been either robbed and/or killed by Venezuelan pirates.

Photo: Jahi Chikwendiu/Washington Post

SCMP/Washington Post: As Venezuela disintegrates, a new breed of pirates terrorises the Caribbean

‘It’s criminal chaos, a free-for-all, along the Venezuelan coast’.

In the flickers of sunlight off the cobalt blue of the Caribbean Sea, the vessel appeared as a cut on the horizon. It sailed closer. But the crew of the Asheena took no heed.

“We be lookin’ for our red fish as normal, thinkin’ they be fishin’, too,” said Jimmy Lalla, 36, part of the crew that had dropped lines in Trinidadian waters last April a few miles off the lawless Venezuelan coast.

The other vessel kept approaching. “They be needin’ help?” Lalla recalled wondering as it pulled aside their 8-metre pirogue. A short, sinewy man jumped on board, shouting in Spanish and waving a pistol.

“Then we knowin’,” Lalla said. “They be pirates.”

Centuries after Blackbeard’s cannons fell silent and the Jolly Roger came down from rum ports across the Caribbean, the region is confronting a new and less romanticised era of pirates.

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WNU Editor: Here is an NBC report two years ago .... Venezuela: Pirates Terrorizing Fishermen as Industry Crumbles (NBC).