A four-million dollar ransom payout for a Spanish trawler is already having a spin-off effect on the piracy-driven local economy of coastal northern Somalia.

Pirates released the tuna trawler Alakrana and its 36 crew last week, six weeks after hijacking the vessel in the Indian Ocean. According to a Mail & Guardian Online report, gunmen hired to protect the pirates as they came ashore with their booty fired into the air as celebrations ran late into the night. By morning, car dealers in the latter-day pirate lair of Harardhere had lined up luxury jeeps to tempt the newly-rich bandits, and local businessmen who fund the pirates during lean times were hoping to double the returns on their loans. 'The boys did a good job in cashing in on the Spanish fishing vessel,' Ahmed Sheikh Mohamud, a pirate leader said. 'Spain is one of the worst countries when it comes to stealing Somali marine resources.' The report notes that 22-year-old Mohamed Dahir Abdullahi said he is in training to join the bandit gangs who have wreaked havoc on shipping plying one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes. However, dividing up the ransom can be complicated by the competing interests of dozens of pirates, businessmen and middlemen buy who buy 'shares' in a hijacking, as well as by clan rivalries.
Full Mail & Guardian Online report