LONDON — Maritime piracy costs the global economy $7 billion to $12 billion a year, researchers said yesterday, with Somali piracy in particular driving up costs of shipping through the Indian Ocean.
Somali pirates in fragile skiffs armed with AK-47s, ladders, grappling hooks and little else were blamed for 95 percent of the cost, according to the report presented at the London foreign-policy think tank Chatham House.