Reply #22: Perhaps to the pirates.

[sofa king]

But underneath it all there is still the same old game, and it's changed little. After the decline of ransom on land, a prize at sea was the only way for a run-of-the-mill soldier, sailor, or Marine to strike it rich, and while the opportunities for white-collar crimes in the American armed forces now abound, the real money is still in piracy.

Once a ship and its cargo is taken, its return becomes a matter of high finance, and there are competing forces out there trying to get it back. One force is the owners of the shipping companies, who are willing to quietly hire the wealthiest mercenaries in the world in order to get the missing ship back before the incident is reported to insurance companies--to avoid increases on premiums. Once reported, the insurance companies often turn to the very same mercenaries to get the ships back. Very few of the recoveries are publicly reported. One might speculate that successful pirates are operating along similar off-the-books practices to dispose of taken ships and their cargoes. Insurance companies have the opportunity to profit or at least minimize loss every step of the way, though they may not be directly involved in all of them, because they will inevitably pass any recovery costs onto someone else.

According to one person I know, the best anti-piracy teams are comprised of former SEALs and SBS types. They wait until their recovery targets are in international waters or places where few questions will be asked, and then the boats are miraculously returned without a pirate to be found aboard. Prize-crews, or whatever they are called these days, can expect to make six figures a job, and can expect to pull off three to five jobs a year--many times what an average Halliburton employee can expect to make running their own brand of piracy against the U.S. taxpayer.

With that kind of money washing around, it's no wonder that the problem persists and (reported piracy, which represents but a fraction of the problem) is even on the rise since the early 00s.