The Pirate Economy

choi

Joe Pinsker, The Pirate Economy. The Atlantic, May 2014.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... ate-economy/359817/
(“Nowadays, some pirates are backed by international investors, and others have their own attorneys to negotiate deals. At their peak, in 2011, Somali pirates are estimated to have collected as much as $156 million in ransoms.
Yet last year, thanks to a host of defensive mechanisms, the number of successful hijackings dropped to zero. Even so, the economic impact of piracy is higher than ever: the amount spent on private security last year alone far exceeded the amount paid out to pirates since 2005”)

Note:
(a) “the number of hijackings exploded in the late aughts”
(i) aught (n; alteration (resulting from false division of a naught) of naught; First Known Use 1872): “ZERO”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aught
(ii) “in the aughts” means “in the 00s”--such as 2000s (2000-2009) and 1900s (1900-1909).

(b) "200%  The markup a pirate can pay in port when buying enough khat, on credit, for the stimulant to last an entire mission"

khat
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khat
(a flowering plant that is native to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula; khat chewing has a history as a social custom dating back thousands of years)