You may have seen the movie “Captain Phillips” about the hijacking of a shipping container off the coast off Somalia by pirates. Recent research by Anja Shortland and Federico Varese mapped the locations of hijacked ships between 2005 and 2012 and found that:
1. Hijacked vessels were always anchored far away from regional trading routes
2. Big ports were not prone to piracy.
The rationale for this is that Somali clans directly influence local trade by issuing licences and also imposing informal taxes on imports and exports. Clans refuse to protect pirates because the income they get from trade is safer and more lucrative that those they can get from pirates. Clans that have little dealings in formal trade tend to offer protection to pirates in order to get a share of their spoils.
This was evident during the ban on Somali livestock imports imposed by Saudi Arabia between 2000…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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