Africa’s High Seas of Crime, Where Criminals Rule the Waves

JOHANNESBURG—A lack of state and industry accountability has turned the oceans around Africa into the world’s biggest transnational crime scene, says one of South Africa’s leading crime researchers. Carina Bruwer of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria told The Epoch Times that the world’s seas, which cover 70 percent of the Earth, have become central to global illicit trade, and that African oceans are some of the best examples of this. “Criminal networks are plundering marine resources, scouring shipping lanes for vessels to hijack, and traversing coastal state waters and the high seas to move commodities to distant destinations,” said Ms. Bruwer, who holds a doctorate in criminology from the University of Cape Town....