Ministers plan to despatch officers from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency to staff a new Indian Ocean unit dedicated to hunting pirate financiers, who provide start-up cash for gangs in return for the lion's share of ransom proceeds. A financier who offers as little $10,000 to equip a gang with skiffs, fuel and guns can easily expect a return of 10 or 20 times his money in the event of a successful hijacking. But while such profits are now believed to run into tens of millions of dollars a year, relatively little is known about exactly where the cash ends up, beyond a widespread acknowledgement that it makes the gangs ever more powerful, and may also line the pockets of Somalia's al-Shabaab Islamist movement. "Pirate financiers are the kingpins of piracy," said Henry Bellingham, Foreign Office minister for Africa, who will announce details of the new centre in a speech to the Chamber of Shipping in London on Wednesday. "Effectively targeting them will have a huge impact on the ability of pirates to terrorise the high seas." The new unit will be based in the Seychelles Islands, nearly 1,000 miles east of Kenya, which have now become a key forward operating base against pirate gangs as they spread their reach across the Indian Ocean.
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