In the piracy-riven Gulf of Guinea, there is doubt as to whether one particular vessel, the Indian-registered MT Apecus, was a victim of pirates or a pirate ship. Confusion has reigned ever since April when pirates reportedly kidnapped the Abecus's crew, sailors from Ghana, Nigeria and India, while the ship cruised off Bonny Island, Nigeria's main oil export terminal. At one point the Indian Foreign Minister tried to intervene to help his countrymen. But then the Nigerian naval authorities said they believed the ship was involved in 'bunkering', the murky trade in crude oil. The country loses an estimated 100,000 barrels of oil a day to the trade.
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