Asian Glory: Everyone Wants A Hyundai

Everyone wants a Hyundai, even Somalian pirates. On New Year’s day, the Asian Glory, a transport ship owned by EUKOR, was hijacked by Somalian pirates. It was the fourth hijacking in a little over a week and was soon anchored off the Somalian coast next to the chemical tanker, St. James Park which had been hijacked only a couple of days earlier. According to the Independent: Prodan Radanov, an official at the Bulgarian office of the London company that manages the ship, said: “One of the sailors managed to call the British management company and say the ship was hijacked, but that the crew were in good health and were not injured.”

The Asian Glory, with a 4,000 car carrying capacity, was enroute to Saudi Arabia from Ulsan carrying 2,405 automobiles and out of this number 2,388 were Hyundais. It has a crew of eight Bulgarians, 10 Ukrainians, five Indians and two Romanians. According to Novinite.com, ”The eight Bulgarian members of the crew of the UK flagged ship Asian Glory have been allowed by their Somali kidnappers to phone their relatives. The sailors have told their families that they were sound and safe, and that they suspected that negotiations for the ransom for their release had been started.”

But who is going to pay the ransom? Hyundai Motor and Kia have asked for a quick and safe return of the crew but in an email to Bloomberg Hyundai quickly removed itself from any responsibility when it said: “As soon as the vessel embarks, all risks related to the vessel are the responsibility of the distributor. All payments for the cars have been made, while the cars are also insured.”

And how much is the ransom? If you remember right, Spain paid 3.3 million dollars in ransom for the tuna trawler Alakrana in November of last year – a huge increase from the year before when they paid 1.2 million dollars for the release of another Spanish trawler. Surely a ship full of cars is worth more than a trawler (although tuna is pretty expensive - a 511 pound tuna just sold for $175,000). Even the rebates have to be worth a fortune. Spain is not the only one paying big bucks – China is too. They paid 4 million dollars for the return of their coal carrier De Xin Hai. But hijacking ships isn’t the only source of income for a Somalian. Lacking a speedboat you can always resort to a plain old kidnapping. It doesn’t pay as much – only $250,000 but you probably don’t have to split it with as many people. Of course, just because countries pay ransoms doesn’t mean that the Somalian pirates are going to be able to spend it - they may drown swimming for it or kill one another fighting for it.

What do the pirates use the money for? Well, for those who can swim and manage to get back to shore, they spend it on weddings and orgies. One young Somalian bride, Khabibo Salad said, “Previously, we could not get married because we lived in poverty, life was difficult, but the situation was unsafe. Women need love and money, and the pirates have the money, and they show us their love.” But apparently not all were willing to show their love for eternity – instead they opted to pay for it. The going price was about 4,000 dollars to partake in an orgy. Even young Mrs. Salad admitted, “Today girls can marry, but many also agree to be paid for sex.”

As I end this post and reflect upon the title it occurs to me that perhaps it isn’t quite accurate – after all, American car thieves don’t want Hyundais – in fact, no Korean automobile is on the top ten list of stolen cars in the United States. Hell with it… I like the title so it is going to stay.

Picture credit: From EUKOR homepage