How much money is piracy bringing into Puntland?
We don’t know how much money has been paid. Most of it, I think, goes outside. We do know they use the money to recruit new pirates from the youngsters who are inexperienced and cannot assess the risk they are running. There is no visible wealth belonging to the pirates. There are some houses in the main towns, but they are not people who can manage money and invest in the proper way. They spend the money in very wasteful manner by corrupting young people, using drugs, alcoholall these things. They exploit the culture of the communities by introducing things that did not exist in the past. Some people have said you have links with the pirate financiers. [Laughs] It’s laughable. I’ve never heard that allegation. It did not exist in the past, it does not exist at the moment, it will not exist in the future. We are against the pirates. I’m told that every young boy now wants to be a pirate and every young girl wants to marry one. There is a joke that if you ask a young woman who you want
