The Republic of Singapore Navy successfully stopped a sea robbery from taking place in the Singapore Strait and nabbed three of the alleged robbers on 1 September 2015.
Initially, the Malaysian-flagged tugboat Permata 1 sent a report to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore’s Port Operations Control Centre (POCC) that the vessel was being boarded by sea robbers and the ship alarm was raised at 09:07 h local time.
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The POCC immediately notified the Maritime Security Task Force (MSTF) which deployed warship RSS Resilience to the incident area at 09:21 h local time. When the sea robbers caught sight of the patrol vessel, they started to flee towards Indonesian waters.
RSN’s Information Fusion Centre then shared information of the incident with the Indonesian Navy’s Western Fleet Sea Security Group and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency.
Later, both agencies dispatched their naval assets to join the search for the sea robbers. Subsequently, three of them were apprehended and the stolen cargo was recovered.
Frederick Chew, commander of the MSTF commended on the cooperativeness of the Singaporean, Indonesian, and Malaysian enforcement agencies in disrupting the sea robbery attempt and “bringing sea robbery incidents down”.
Permata 1 was then being escorted by RSS Resilience back to Singapore waters, where the Singapore’s Police Coast Guard boarded the tugboat for investigations. According to Singapore’s ministry of defence, all crew members on board the tugboat were unharmed.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.
