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Dead in the Water
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Dead in the Water

A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy

Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel
Portfolio, 2022
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Comprehensive
  • Eye Opening
  • Engaging

Recommendation

The world economy depends on shipping for the movement of global goods. Yet this international industry lacks transparency, with those in power hiding lawless and corrupt practices from the public, explain award-winning journalists Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel. They spent more than four years investigating one of the most complex and ambitious cases of maritime fraud: the burning of the cargo ship Brillante Virtuoso. Risking their own lives to tell the story, Campbell and Chellel examine falsified reports, a purported pirate attack and a real murder, shedding much-needed light onto a shadowy industry.

Summary

When the Brillante Virtuoso burst into flames in 2011, the ship’s crew said that pirates had attacked it.

On the surface, it looked like one of recent history’s biggest pirate attacks: The Brillante Virtuoso, an oil tanker nearly as big as three football fields, erupted in flames in 2011. The ship was traveling from Ukraine to China, carrying a million barrels of oil in its hull, worth roughly $100 million. Those on board claimed that pirates had attacked as the ship passed through the Gulf of Aden. Pirate attacks were nothing new in that area. Somali pirates were known to hold both crews and ships hostage, forcing shipowners to pay ransoms for their release. 

Somalia’s central government had collapsed in the early 1990s, making the failed state a hospitable environment for pirates, Islamic extremists and warlords. Despite these dangers, the Gulf remained an important shipping passage, as ships needed to go through the waterway at the Horn of Africa, between Yemen and Somalia, to travel between Asia and Europe. In 2010 alone, there were more than 170 reported attacks on vessels...

About the Authors

Matthew Campbell is a reporter and editor at Bloomberg Businessweek. Kit Chellel is a reporter at Bloomberg, as well as a Businessweek magazine features writer.

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