BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A European Union naval force tackling piracy off Somalia’s coast is reinforcing security procedures after a report that gangs are using information from London to plan attacks, the force’s chief said on Wednesday.

British Rear Admiral Philip Jones said he was “bemused” by the report, which was broadcast by a Spanish radio station. He said the EU force’s headquarters in northwest London kept tight control of shipping intelligence and there was no indication any of its operations had been compromised. “We are assuming, if anything at all, that when reports are made about London, we are talking about elements of the Somalian diaspora in London and the way it builds its information,” Jones told a news briefing in Brussels. “But we are redoubling our efforts to make sure there is no way in which information we promulgate to merchant shipping companies and information they make available to us becomes widely available outside the protected and secure channels in which we use it at the moment. Spain’s Cadena Ser radio quoted a European military intelligence report on Monday as saying Somali gangs had built up a network of informants in London with access to sensitive data from shipping firms about vessels, routes and cargoes. It said the gangs received information by satellite phone and used sophisticated equipment to locate targets. It listed several attacks in which the groups surprised crew with detailed information, including the nationalities of those on board. Western nations have sent warships to try to stop Somali groups which have made millions of dollars extorting ransoms from ships and their crews in strategic shipping lanes off the Horn of Africa that connect Europe to Asia. Jones said this week’s report was “a useful wake-up call to check that our procedures are robust in this area”. He said the EU operation, codenamed Atalanta, was investigating the origin of the report but added: “There’s no indications we’ve had of any compromise to any of the operations we are setting up.” Jones said no information had been found on any of the Somali gangs’ vessels that had been captured to link them to any source of information about merchant ships in London.

“There is no evidence of that whatsoever,” he said.

Source: Reuters

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