Do you know About Modern Pirates? Total Number and Type of Attacks?
Piracy is not an ancient phenomenon. We mapped all pirate attacks between 1993 and 2024 to understand their impact on modern trade. Few topics are more likely to spark misconceptions than modern piracy. When you think of pirates, you probably think back to centuries past. Your mind naturally conjures images of wooden sailing ships sailing the Caribbean, preying on government ships, and wreaking havoc on coastal towns. Images of black flags adorned with skulls and bones fill your mind.
However, this impression is often wrong, at least in our time. We often think of pirates as a relic of the past, when in fact, they still roam the seas, threatening a vast array of imported goods. In fact, they remain one of the biggest threats to shipping, having been responsible for nearly 13,000 attacks on operating ships in the past 30 years.
The main difference is that pirates no longer fight against governments or hide on deserted islands. Instead, modern pirates focus on attacking cargo ships, either stealing part of the cargo or hijacking the entire ship and demanding a ransom. So, instead of targeting chests of gold, they target large shipping containers. But just how big is their impact on global trade?
First, we found that while piracy remains a serious problem today, its incidence is steadily decreasing. In 2023, the International Pirate Commission reported a total of 194 attacks, a 5.3% decrease from 2010 and a 74% decrease from 2010. Piracy has been steadily decreasing since 2010.
A deeper analysis of these attacks reveals that the significant surge in piracy in the early 21st century was primarily attributed to an increase in the number of attempted attacks. In contrast, the number of successful boardings remained relatively constant. Therefore, modern piracy attacks are either decreasing or have remained at similar levels for more than a decade.
During the data collection process, we also found the actual coordinates of all recorded attacks, which allows us to understand geographically where modern pirates are attacking. The following figure shows all pirate attacks over time, with different colors to indicate whether the pirates successfully boarded the ship, attempted to board the ship, used firearms against the crew, and other categories:
At first glance, you may notice that the vast majority of pirate attacks are concentrated in Southeast Asia, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea. While the distribution of points near the Horn of Africa may indicate that this region is the most active in piracy, once you count them, you will find that this is not the case. 46.9% of pirate attacks occurred in the East Asia and Pacific region, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa with 21.2%. Latin America, on the other hand, accounted for only 10.3% of the total number of piracy cases studied, with the vast majority concentrated in northern South America.
However, it is worth noting that piracy tends to follow certain patterns. Most pirates prefer to attack ships as soon as they enter international waters, where countries lack jurisdiction, which complicates formal prosecution. The average distance from the coast has consistently remained around 22.2 kilometers, the typical starting point for international waters.
Aside from a significant increase in attacks around 2010, it is generally safe to say that most contemporary pirates operate near international borders. Therefore, in our analysis, we generally associate each attack with the country closest to its specific coordinates. Average distance from coast for pirate attacks (1993-2020)
Looking at specific countries, Asia once again emerges as the dominant region. More specifically, Indonesia is the country most affected by pirate attacks, with 2,133 attacks in the past 30 years. Its neighbor, Malaysia, follows closely behind, with 775 attacks. It is followed by Nigeria (557), Bangladesh (475), and Yemen (469).
A natural question arises: why does this happen? Why is modern piracy so concentrated in these countries?
A long-standing and often popular theory posits that modern piracy is disproportionately concentrated in the poorest countries. In theory, this is what one would expect to see when countries like Somalia, Yemen, and Bangladesh appear on the list, all of which have a GDP per capita of less than $2,700 per year.
However, when comparing the overall piracy rates of these countries to their GDP per capita, there is little evidence of an effect. While countries with the highest number of pirate attacks are generally impoverished, there are also many wealthy nations that suffer significantly from these attacks. For example, Singapore, a wealthy island nation bordering Malaysia and Indonesia, has suffered 29 pirate attacks despite having a GDP per capita of more than $89,000. In fact, we conducted a simple linear regression analysis and found no statistical evidence to suggest that poverty is a cause of piracy.
Instead, we found that the main predictor of piracy is not just a country’s level of poverty, but also its proximity to important maritime trade routes. To achieve this, we utilized all the previously produced pirate attack maps and applied them to Destia’s chokepoint maps. This map illustrates that most of the world’s trade passes through 12 strategic chokepoints around the globe. From this map, we observe that most pirate attacks are concentrated in six key locations, primarily in two regions.
The first three choke points are located off the coast of Southeast Asia, including the Strait of Malacca, the Lombok-Makassar Strait, and the South China Sea, which together account for 27% of the total trade in strategic choke points. The following three choke points are located adjacent to the Red Sea: the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which collectively account for 14.4% of global maritime traffic. It is no surprise that pirates target these six choke points, which account for 41.4% of global maritime traffic.
Pirates are therefore no longer a phenomenon of the past. They remain highly active, targeting major trade routes worldwide. Their range of activities is not limited to any one country, although they tend to inhabit specific regions where trade is most active. The number of pirates has gradually decreased in recent years, but more than 100 ships are still attacked each year. As long as trade continues, these pirates are likely to continue their activities.
