Armed pirates have commandeered a Thai tanker and pumped out its cargo of oil.
The incident took place on Thursday near the Malaysian resort island of Tioman in the South China Sea as the tanker was travelling from Singapore to Thailand.
The International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre said the ship’s crew were locked in the engine room as the pirates siphoned off the tanker’s cargo of lubricant oil to another vessel.
The ship and its crew — all unharmed — have been released.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.