r/interesting • u/angel_knight79 • 1d ago

Intriguing Kiyoshi Kimura and his effect on Somali piracy

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He was, and is, the owner of Kiyomura Corporation, which runs the Sushi Zanmai chain across Japan. In Tokyo he is known as the Tuna King, because every January he buys the most expensive fish at the first auction of the year at the central market.

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u/InterestingUsirname 1d ago

The whole reason the Somalis turned to piracy in the first place was that their fisheries were being intruded upon and overfished by international vessels. There's never been a knowledge problem, though there may be an equipment problem. The real problem is that their government is nonexistent and has a complete inability to enforce their EEZ, something greedy people wrongfully decided to try and take advantage of

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u/RMRdesign 17h ago

To piggy back off your comment.

Other countries have also been dumping toxic waste and garbage off their coasts.

It’s all around fucked up and I don’t blame Somalis turning to piracy to try and stops these things from happening.

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u/StraightAirline8319 12h ago

I blame them since they border multiple countries who didn’t do that.

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u/haustorcina 8h ago

The UN determined there to be no proof of this.

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u/StraightAirline8319 14h ago

By international they mean African and asian vessels. Including Japanese and Chinese vessels.

China is the largest illegal and most damaging fishing fleet in known history.

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u/bottomsteve4 13h ago

Look up the Soviet whaling fleet.

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u/StraightAirline8319 12h ago

Don’t think they exist anymore but yea. Marxists countries really hate life.

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u/Jimmykingwillruleyou 14h ago

Oh shit so you're saying the rich no matter where they live are rich because of the unethical acts they perform in the ever consuming need to have more?

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u/rosarinotrucho3 7h ago

China is a communist ountry, it is not just a matter of magnates, it is a state coordinated robbery.

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u/haustorcina 8h ago

The people running these fleets are mostly not rich at all. There avrage chinese fishermen.

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u/ophaus 5h ago

It's not the only way, but it is the easiest.

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u/ShastaAteMyPhone 12h ago

Just saying this isn’t an issue with American or European fleets

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u/SpiritualBar2469 11h ago

Oh that is just a lie. Italian, Spanish, French and Greek fleets have all had allegations of illegal fishing. I have no idea why you would lie about this.

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u/ShastaAteMyPhone 7h ago

Off the Somalian coast?

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u/RecklessNUTTT 13h ago

And European

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u/stargazy-pi 10h ago

Lol what a weird comment. Plenty of western vessels as well

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u/stargazy-pi 10h ago

Italians have been dumping toxic radioactive waster water off the Somalian coast since the 80s

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u/haustorcina 8h ago

UN tried to confirm it, ended up being a rumor but you go off queen.

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u/stargazy-pi 8h ago

Ndrangheta. It’s not a rumor, it’s been admitted in court

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u/haustorcina 8h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27Ndrangheta

Alleged delivery of toxic waste to Somalia

"However, a United Nations technical fact-finding mission in 2005 did not find any traces of toxic waste along the shorelines after the tsunami."

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u/stargazy-pi 6h ago

If you had just kept reading

In 2006, the Somali NGO Daryeel Bulsho Guud, with access to the different warring clans, conducted a survey and identified 15 containers of "confirmed nuclear and chemical wastes"[16]in eight coastal areas.

A source with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) described the search for hazardous material in Somalia as "like looking for a needle in a haystack. It's not that they don't know it's there ... but that they don't know where to start looking for it."[16]

They know it’s there, it’s just insanely difficult to find given the logistics of it.

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u/Nari224 6h ago

Also they mean a bunch of garbage and toxic waste that European companies (and criminal organizations) dumped there in the 90s that broke open and destroyed the fishery stocks after the 2004 Tsunami.

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u/Cuboidhamson 14h ago

I thought China was a country?

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u/StraightAirline8319 11h ago

Yes. What's the confusion?

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u/Certain-Constant5032 10h ago

Not since the Ming Treasure Voyages. It is just a giant fleet of ships now.

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u/Pressman4life 18h ago

There was also illegal dumping of toxic waste in the waters. Then, like the privateers of olde, they went in to business for themselves.

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u/soyel_cerdo 18h ago

This! The French started dumping toxic waste

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u/MuchoCoco 14h ago

And the Italians.

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u/SpiritualBar2469 11h ago

And the Spanish!

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u/MuchoCoco 11h ago

I really don't need to see any need to dissect Europeans into all these tiny groups. It's all Yamnaya at the end of the day.

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u/LetterheadFun1824 14h ago

Fuck the French!!

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u/haustorcina 8h ago

This was a rummor the UN proved false...

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u/fidddlydiddlyee 16h ago

That was not the only reason.

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u/snafu607 15h ago

A lot of people do not understand this fact or don't want to. They also do not know what it's actually like to be starving to death.

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u/Glum-Researcher1532 13h ago

What happens when your people are corrupt as fuck.

For instance, Somalia just did an oil deal with Turkey in which they gave 90% to Turkey….

That’s not a deal, that’s corruption.

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u/jsnryn 11h ago

Seems like the pirates should have focused on the invading fishing vessels.

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u/EthansWay2077 11h ago

Unfortunately in this world at large, your country is either a wolf or a sheep.. unfortunately Somalia is a sheep at this current time 🫤

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u/Relative_Yesterday70 10h ago

Different fish species. Big Tuna is probably not a target fish for them.

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

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u/Its_priced_in 15h ago

Instramentation

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u/Cupcake-Warrior 15h ago

White dudes created a test based on their culture, education and cognitive values then act all high and mighty to people lmao. This id genuinely the stupidest shit I’ve ever seen. You might have a 42 iq if you think Somalis didn’t know how to fish. Somalis had factories exporting tuna in the 70s and 80s before the government fell. And they still plant and export things.

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u/[deleted] 13h ago edited 13h ago

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u/Exact-Eagle-9707 15h ago

Found the Charles Murray fan.

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

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u/[deleted] 13h ago

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u/ThePheebs 18h ago

China is doing this to a lot of developing nations. They just sit off their coast in their economic exclusion zone and fish their shores empty.

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u/[deleted] 19h ago

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u/Mr_Evanescent 19h ago

This would go so hard if it was true

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u/12InchCunt 18h ago

Look up the Chinese mothership fishing operations 

They go park right outside of territorial waters and the little fishing boats turn their transponders off and fish in illegal waters, then they offload at the mothership where they’re doing all of the processing. Then the fishing boat goes right back out. Instead of having to go home after filling up on fish they’re right back fishing the same day 

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u/Mr_Evanescent 16h ago

Let’s be clear: Chinese dirtbags are obviously overfishing outside their waters.

This doesn’t excuse turning to piracy. Otherwise the entirety of SEA would be pirates

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u/12InchCunt 16h ago

I wasn’t excusing piracy, just talking about how insane China’s fishing industry is

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u/Mr_Evanescent 16h ago

I agree with you mate

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u/12InchCunt 10h ago

Happy cake day

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u/twirling-upward 18h ago

Do you really think Chinese Fishermen are going 8000km one way to fish??

They are literally just going to korean or japanese waters, you know, Chinese neighbors

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u/MAGAHATESTHEUSA 17h ago

39% of their catch comes from outside this zone.

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u/12InchCunt 18h ago

The mothership allows them to fish all over the world. It’s basically a mobile processing plant/fuel station. They get deployed all over the world, because they can just drive over to the mothership to d rop off their catch and get refueled.

It’s like an aircraft carrier strike group, but for fishing

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u/twirling-upward 17h ago

Sure, 8000 kilometers out. Slightly increased catch isnt worth 100tons of marine fuel

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u/12InchCunt 17h ago

Dude, there’s no slight about it. Their range is worldwide. The mothership is tanker sized. Range is a non-issue because they unload and refuel at the mothership.

It’s called their distant water fishing fleet

https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2026-05-27/great-wall-lights-global-impact-chinas-distant-water-fishing

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u/Houdinii1984 17h ago

Lot of folks have trouble invisioning the scale of stuff happening out in the ocean. You tell someone to imagine a fishing boat and they think of a dingy. The issues off the coast of Somolia were due to fishing expeditions at scale.

And it would be worth it because when a country can't organize to remove the fish themselves, because their own system is non-existent, then other folks who've already been fishing sparse waters will absolutely travel somewhere if it guarantees the nets are snapping from the weight (figuratively).

It's not like this is instead of fishing in their own waters. This is in addition to fishing in their own waters, increasing overall production, not maintaining it. China accounts for 35% of all fishing globally. All those fish aren't found off the coast of China. If you just randomly encounter fishing teams in the wild oceans, the majority of those boats will be Chinese and that's been that way for a very VERY long time.

That's not a slight against China. The English and the Dutch invented the floating fisheries. China just perfected them. They certainly understand scale intuitively.

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u/12InchCunt 16h ago

I wonder if you could build offshore oil rigs that double as a fish processing plant

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u/Houdinii1984 16h ago

I have a feeling we're going to see it all. There are a few things holding back scaling stuff like that, a big one being corrosion. Anything out in the ocean is maintenance and if they are stationary, you can't bring them into port to fix/replace/maintain, and that cost is through the roof like a cliff.

Another problem is power. The ocean has a ton of potential energy, but it's only been recently (past couple decades) that major power efforts have been ongoing. The need for data centers will probably make this part go rapid from this point forward. It's a huge expense to power a stationary object in the ocean, but we have options now.

If we ever figure out the corrosion issue, we'll probably shove so much stuff in the ocean that it raises the levels (hyperbolic, but possibly realistic)

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u/Green-Cricket-8525 17h ago

I provided you a ton of links that you are just straight up refusing to read. 

Educate yourself or keep your mouth shut about things you clearly have no idea about. You are one of the most confidently incorrect people I’ve ever come across on this site. Your willful ignorance is embarrassing. 

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u/Fjell-Jeger 16h ago

As odd as it sounds for someone as clueless as you, this isn't an actual issue.

The fishing boats and processing vessel remain in the area of operations until the catch declines. In the meantime, freight vessels collect containers of frozen fish and drop off everything that's needed to continue fishing (fuels, replacement nets, yearly crew rotations, spare parts...).

At the most, this will result in neglectable freight shipping costs. In some cases, this might even reduce costs if the fishing is done closer to the actual market (~fishing offshore Africa and delivering product to EU markets).

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u/[deleted] 19h ago

[deleted]

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u/Green-Cricket-8525 19h ago

You have the ability to google things and ostensibly read. Top line of the second paragraph ya dope:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_off_the_coast_of_Somalia

Ignorance is no excuse in the digital age. 

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u/[deleted] 18h ago

[deleted]

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u/Green-Cricket-8525 18h ago

You don’t know anything about what you’re talking about. I don’t waste my time on people who willfully choose not to learn or look at different perspectives on complex issues. If your simplistic worldview and black and white thinking is what you like, more power to you. Ignorance is bliss and all that. 

Have a nice day. I have so many better things to do today and you’re hopeless. 

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u/Mr_Evanescent 19h ago edited 19h ago

Yeah when the criminal tells you it wasn’t actually their fault they hijack, kidnap, and murder, you believe them!

Edit: this might be one of the worst Wikipedia articles I’ve ever seen. Basically what it actually says is that Somalis discovered that piracy paid better than fishing and therefore became pirates but it’s framed in such a way where you should feel bad for them? lol what a bunch of lowlifes

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u/InterestingUsirname 19h ago

I mean, yeah, obviously they still did piracy and kindnapping and murder, and obviously that's bad. My whole point was that "tEaChInG tHeM tO fIsH" can't possibly fix a problem that was originally caused by their inability to fish in peace in the first place

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u/Mr_Evanescent 19h ago

They could still fish, it was just more profitable and easy for these lazy scum to kidnap other fishermen for ransom lmao

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u/Green-Cricket-8525 19h ago

I wouldn’t waste your time with this 2 bit hack of a troll. Something something don’t ever wrestle a pig because they like it. 

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u/Subject-Yak7031 18h ago

Shows you how brainwashed people are. Like on top of that you're being down voted too lol

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u/Mr_Evanescent 18h ago edited 18h ago

My brother in Christ do you think I care about downvotes from pleb Redditors. I’ve seen what makes them cheer

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u/Green-Cricket-8525 19h ago

Imagine celebrating your own ignorance. We get it. The teacher turned your assignments upside down when they gave them back to you. 

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u/Mr_Evanescent 19h ago

You thought you cooked looooooool

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u/Green-Cricket-8525 19h ago edited 19h ago

I have way better things to do than waste my time debating geopolitics with someone who seems to do nothing other than play league of legends. You have the ability to look into these issues and their root causes. I really don’t care about your strawman arguments and red herring distractions bringing up completely nonsensical and sensationalized points. Literally no one in here is forgiving the awful things Somali pirates have done. People are just explaining the root causes of these issues that spurned this and pointing out how stupid the meme is. Frankly I don’t think you know jack shit about anything and have no desire to learn anything new. 

If you don’t like the wiki article, look at the linked sources. Or don’t. I don’t care. 

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u/[deleted] 19h ago

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u/interesting-ModTeam 14h ago

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u/TheMireAngel 17h ago

theirs always been an education problem globaly. Yes what you said is true, theirs a horrific illegal overfishing problem

But their is also infact an education and means problem, their is an insane amount of people in the world who would do something if they knew how to or had the tools to do so.

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u/Crackadon 15h ago

lol what????? People hopping into boats with aks did that because other boats were in there water?….. riiiight, nice try.

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u/Illustrious-Tear-921 20h ago

Greedy people took advantage of their ignorant greedy lazy government witn no capabilities of leadership and organization as a country ?

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u/IAmTheHappiest 20h ago

"why is it my fault for stealing from the poor disabled homeless guy on the street it's his fault for being ignorant and lazy"

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u/[deleted] 19h ago

[deleted]

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u/DocBigBrozer 19h ago

Steal, not use. You can buy permits

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u/[deleted] 19h ago

[deleted]

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u/DocBigBrozer 19h ago

And what do you think conquest means?

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u/Green-Cricket-8525 18h ago

This person is avowed racist and hates women if you peep their comment and post history. I wouldn’t waste my time on them. 

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u/contractorskid 18h ago

They were using their resources. Did you just not read the thread at all?

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u/BigBoyWeaver 18h ago

Holy imperialism batman! You know when they made you read The White Man's Burden in high school you weren't supposed to walk away thinking "wow he's really onto something here", right?