http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/After the exposure of the CIA's other counter-proliferation activities, it was not long before Asian and other international criminal gangs and syndicates, particularly those involving Russian-Israeli
gangsters and smugglers tied to Cheney, Libby, and convicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and police and military forces in the region realized that a cooperative arrangement existed between certain pirate groups and U.S. intelligence. The joint CIA-pirate gang interdictions affected a very small percentage of the tens of thousands of vessels that annually transited the Straits of Malacca.
The joint operations were launched from numerous small islets, coves, sheltered rivers, and lagoons that predominate the Malay peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and other islands in the South China Sea and Straits of Malacca. Aceh-based pirates in northern Sumatra and Philippines-based pirates reportedly proved to be the most reliable for the CIA. Targeted merchant ships included North Korean-, Panamanian-, Liberian-, Iranian-, Pakistani-, Chinese-, Ukrainian-, Honduran-, and Bahamian-flagged ships. Most of the vessels were transiting between North Korea, China (including Macao), Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.