Burnett John S. Dangerous Waters. Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas

Dutton Adult, 2002. — 332 p. — ISBN: 978-0-525946793.While sailing alone one night in the shipping lanes across one of the busiest waterways in the world, John Burnett was attacked by pirates. Through ingenuity and a little bit of luck, he survived, and his shocking firsthand experience inspired him to investigate this growing, global problem. Now, in Dangerous Waters, he charts piracy’s resurgence, and reveals the threat it poses to our safety and security.
Today’s breed of pirates has little in common with the romantic rum-swilling rogues and colorful cutthroats of Hollywood or our imagination. They can be local seamen looking for a quick score, highly trained guerrillas, rogue military units, or former seafarers recruited by sophisticated crime organizations. Armed with machetes, assault rifles, and grenade launchers, they steal out in speedboats and fishing boats in search of supertankers, cargo ships, passenger ferries, cruise ships, and yachts. They attack in port, on the open seas, and in international waters. Entire ships, cargo, and crews simply vanish, hijacked by pirates working for multinational crime syndicates; these modern-day ghost ships often turn up later running drugs or carting illegal immigrants to the United States.