Seattle Times
May 24, 2009

Young, newly rich and restless, Ali Abdinur Samo wasn't long for his dead-end homeland of Somalia. The 26-year-old recently decamped to Kenya, East Africa's land of opportunity, to put his wealth to work.

"I'm looking around," said Samo, whose close-cropped hair is already flecked with gray, an occupational hazard in his line of work. "I know people who are buying shops, hotels, properties. The economy is strong here, not like back home."

Samo, if you hadn't guessed, is a Somali pirate.

"Was a pirate," he corrected. After making about $116,000 in two heists, Samo bowed to his worried parents' pleas and took early retirement in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, where the fast-growing yet shady economy has quickly become a favorite haven for pirates with ransom money to spend.

The pirates often describe themselves as saviors with AK-47s, an ad hoc coast guard that's retaliating against foreign countries for fishing illegally off Somalia's coast while civil war consumes the

Ali Abdinur Samo, 26, a retired Somali pirate, now lives in Eastleigh, a ramshackle enclave in Nairobi, Kenya. Samo is looking to invest some of his pirate loot.

Rather than investing in their wrecked homeland, pirates are laundering huge sums through property, hotels, shopping arcades and trucking companies in Kenya, according to family members, real-estate brokers, money traders and pirates themselves.

They say that ransom money is being funneled to pirate custodians — often well-connected Somali businessmen or religious leaders — through the extensive and largely unregulated Islamic cash-transfer network known as hawala.

"Pirate money is definitely being reinvested in Kenya," said Stig Jarle Hansen, a Somalia expert at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research. "There's a boom among Somali businessmen in Kenya, and it's easy to hide the money because there's so much coming in. And I don't think Kenyan authorities control or monitor this."

For a shrouded but unmistakable glimpse inside the pirate money network, visit Eastleigh, a dilapidated, Somali-dominated section of Nairobi dubbed "Little Mogadishu."

The starting point is often a one-room, Somali-owned hawala bureau such as the one where 34-year-old Abdirahman works, in a crowded shopping arcade on a noisy dirt road that turns to muck in the rain.

Abdirahman, a round-faced clerk in a yellow dress shirt and fraying khakis, estimated that over the past several months his office has transferred more than $10 million from Puntland, the lawless northeastern Somali region where most pirate groups are based.

One day in February, one person received $500,000.

The cash came from four different names in Garowe, the Puntland regional capital, and Bossasso, a wild port city.

The recipient was a simply dressed man with a Muslim cleric's long beard.

He stuffed the bricks of cash into his socks, belt and waistband, and disappeared.

With such riches on the table, experts say, pirates are unlikely to abandon the business anytime soon, despite worldwide condemnation and an international fleet of warships patrolling the Indian Ocean.

However, some, like Samo, are cashing out.

He'd been working as a dock hand in Bossasso last year when he was recruited into a pirate gang and tasked with guarding hostages. After two jobs, he'd had enough of the searing heat and heart-pounding risk. He feigned illness and walked away.

He proposed to the mother of his young child and spent $5,000 on their wedding. He assuaged his parents' anxiety about his career choice by buying them two modest homes and handing over most of his earnings.

Then, with $15,000 in his pocket, he set off for Eastleigh, where he's renting an apartment with three other former pirates and trying to find his niche.

One day he visited a clothing shop that a slightly older pirate he knew had acquired recently. Samo scanned the neat aisles with their colorful fabrics and tried to imagine his future.

"It was nice," he said later. "The guy sells ready-made men's clothes from Dubai. There was an old man running the store, maybe his relative.

"It looked like a nice business. Something to think about."

SOURCE:  Seattle Times, May 24, 2009

luckymes @ 5/24/2009 5:54 PM EST  Seattle times is also on the band wagon of the Pirate show biz. The journalist has to write something about piracy and came up with this idea: Look for some skinny in Eastleigh, pay him lunch and boom, the story is there. This guy with white flecks is older than me and he is 26 yrs.kkkkkk No doubt he is lying as he is lying about his age.

baghdad bob @ 5/24/2009 10:57 AM EST  somalis bring some 700 million dollars into the kenyan economy. The kenyan shilling never lost its value in the midst of the election violence thanks to the countless amount of dollars somalis were funneling through Nairobi. The kenyans are smart enough to know that somalis will move with their business if disturbed and they will anyway. The new point of destination is Angola!

saba @ 5/24/2009 9:05 AM EST   This can't be about "pirating money", even if all pirates put all their money (say 60 million $) in Kenya, it is nothing but PEANUTS in Kenya's multi billion dollar unacounted for Cash. This can only be understood as if they are up to coming up with certain rules for Somalis first, God knows whom next.

kormar @ 5/24/2009 8:13 AM EST  aniga waxay ila tahay labo mid waa mida in ninkan jornalistaha in uu ku yiri waxaan rabaa inaan soo bandhigo dhibaatada lagu hayo xeebaha somalia iyo sunta lagu daadinayo si aan taas usamayona waxaan u baahanahay nin wax ka yaqaan waxoogaa shilimaad ahna aan siiyo oo sidaas lagu soo qalqaalshay ninkan dabadeedna fariinka looga booday oo mashruucan lagu soo daabacay uu isna wax ka ogeen.indhahisana siday ilatahay waa ruux uu shiid ku hayo nairobi midi waa taas. mida kalena inuu isleeyahay inta lagu qabto halaguu kaxeeyo wadamadan reer galbeedka ah oo markaas aad tiraahdid war aiga waxba kama ogi howshan maskiin qaxooti raadis ah ayaan ahay dabadeedna sidaas uu ku helo qaxootinimo.taasna waa mid suura gal ah oo dhalinyarada maanta fikradaha ay keenayaan ma ahan mid aad kulayaabtid sababtoo ah ragii laga sugayey inay wadanka maamulaan ayaaba iyagiiba qaarkood ka cararaya hoteelada oo is dhiibaya , marka isku soo duuboo waa murugo usoo hoyatay magaca somaliyeed iyo dhalintii mustaqbalka.

ilatali @ 5/24/2009 8:12 AM EST  Don't waorry, any Somali criminal who invested $$ in kenya, deserved to be arested by the corrupt kenyan police force and loose his entire asset. let them go to hell. This guy is no different then former PM Ali Geedi who is sitting $30 million he stole from starving 2 milion refugee in MOgadosho. the big houses in Nairobi and Isleagh, my advice to them is rememeber during the Kenya riots, Police and civilian were ready loot "bililiqo" Somali shops and houses. horee loo yiri "Haybad waxaa ku leedahay dhulkaada hooyo" kuwa soo gubaeen dhulkooda oo mooday inay nabad ku heliyaan Islegh or Dubia, they will loose big time and be measry for ever.