What Types of Threats and Crimes on the High Seas Does the FBI See?
First, let me give you a brief summary of the various crimes on the high seas that the FBI has responded to and investigated over the last five years. From Fiscal Year 2000 through June of 2005, the FBI opened 305 cases of crime on the high seas. Sexual and physical assaults on cruise ships were the leading crimes reported to and investigated by the FBI on the high seas over the last five years, at 45 percent and 22 percent respectively. Missing persons cases comprised 10 percent of cases opened and death investigations comprised 8 percent. Recently, incidents of piracy have been increasingly common in some parts of the world, the most recent being the attack on a cruise ship containing U.S. citizens off the coast of Somalia in November 2005. Sexual assaults are the dominant threat to women and minors on the high seas. The vast majority of these incidents occur on cruise ships. Physical assaults are the second most frequent crime, and again, the majority of these assaults take place on
