Thai oil tanker believed to be hijacked  

KUALA LUMPUR: International Maritime Bureau (IMB) have claimed that the oil tanker, carrying 14 crew members, has been kidnapped while it was en route from Singapore to Indonesia on Saturday, ARY News reports.

It should be noted that this is the second kidnapping to take place this year in one of the world’s busiest seaways.

“It could be a hijacking. We have sent signals for ships in the area to keep a lookout and the authorities have been alerted,” Noel Choong, the head of IMB’s Kuala Lumpur-based Piracy Reporting Center, told Reuters on Saturday.

Contact with MT Orapin 4 was lost by the authorities on May 27 as it departed from Singapore for the city of Pontianak in Indonesia, a report by the IMB stated.

Three million liters of diesel was stolen as pirates raided a tanker.

It should be noted that earlier hijackings have taken place near Singapore, with five such incidents taking place between 2011 and 2013, according to the government-to-government body, Regional Co-operation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP).

There were eight armed attacks in the Malacca Strait and around Singapore in the first quarter this year, compared with one in the same period last year, Singapore-headquartered ReCAAP said, although most were small thefts.

Source: Reuters