River pirates

A river pirate is a pirate who operates along a river. The term has been used to describe many different kinds of pirate groups who carry out riverine attacks in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, and South America. They are usually prosecuted under national, not international law.

In Asia, river piracy is a major threat even today. The "Yangtze Patrol", from 1854-1949, was a prolonged naval operation, protecting American treaty ports and U.S. citizens along the Yangtze River from river pirates and Chinese insurgents. During the 1860s and 1870s, American merchant ships were prominent on the lower Yangtze, operating inland up to the deepwater port of Hankou 680 mi (1,090 km). In 1874, the U.S. gunboat USS Ashuelot reached as far as Ichang, at the foot of the Yangtze gorges, 975 miles (1,569 km) from the sea. In this period, most US personnel found a tour in the Yangtze to be uneventful, as a major American shipping company had sold its interests to a Chinese firm, leaving the patrol with little to protect. The added mission of anti-piracy patrols required U.S. naval and marine landing parties to be put ashore several times in order to protect American interests.

Currently, in a region known as the "Golden Triangle", river piracy, combined with illegal trafficking of heroin, poses a major international law enforcement problem. One of the worst criminal cases dealing with Asian river pirates occurred on October 5, 2011, called the "Mekong River massacre". A Chinese cargo ship hauling nine hundred thousand amphetamine pills, worth more than three million dollars, was attacked and hijacked, and thirteen crewmen were killed. The hijackers were caught and executed by the Chinese government in 2012.

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