How to cut down a pirate's pi/e/

The best way for companies and governments to recover the huge amounts of ransom money paid to Somali pirates is to use inter-pirate rivalry to get the money back piece by piece. Here's the real story first:

"Pirates seized the Sirius on November 15. A $3.5 million ransom payment, down from the initial demand of $25 million, was dropped by parachute onto the ship Friday, but the pirates delayed the vessel's release after the drownings. Other pirates on the shore wanted a tip from the pirates on the Sirius Star, so they started to fire in the air as our people approached the land"

Going from $25 million down to $3.5 million is great savings but $3.5 million is still Sirious money. Wanna have a pirate's pi and eat it too? Here's what you can do. This is a Sirius proposition after all.

You negotiate with a rival team of pirates to give them the $3 million and you keep the $500,000. You actually hire them and sign a contract with them. It's all about enticing them to really go after their own ilk. You give them immunity from any prosecution if they fetch you back the $500,000 they get to keep the $3 million which in effect has been money-laundered and can be used tax-free anywhere in the world! Or so you say to them anyway :P

But before they get to use the money and as soon as that first contract is signed, you immediately start negotiating with rival teams of pirates to steal the money from the pirates who held it last. As the process of signing successive contracts and watering down the initial amount goes on, at some point you will have recovered the full original amount paid in ransom and in the process you will also have gotten rid off of most pirates.

I see no problem signing second-time and third-time watered-down contracts even with the same team of pirates if you run out of rivalries. I also see no problem agreeing to cover funeral expenses for any pirate losses incurred and sibling re-trainings in non-pirate activities. Somali funerals are cheap and sibling re-training in non-pirate activities means that spouses and kids will be taken off piracy!

Take it from a pirate. Deceit is the language they can understand. You better use it if you want to speak the same language and get your work done successfully and not put your men in harm's way :)

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