Prologue – Pender Pirates, Suegali Warlords, Shadow Warriors, and the Bellingham Yacht Club
© Copyright by John B. Gargett 2008/2009 All Rights Reserved
Poets Cove is a luxury destination resort in Bedwell Harbour, South Pender Island, in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia Canada. South Pender, like most of the Gulf Islands, are a few miles from the San Juan Islands of the United States. Piracy, known to occur on every sea and ocean since the dawn of the mariner, has seldom occurred in these waters. Smuggling, however, has flourished, with peaks occurring with Chinese and East Indian workers in the 1800’s, whiskey during Prohibition and drugs today.
With a population of just a few thousand, the economy of South Pender is based on tourism, fishing, timber, artists and small business. Poets Cove Resort and Spa is one of the larger businesses. The Canadian Customs Dock is at the foot of Poets Cove Resort, is a very active customs clearing point for U.S. boaters entering Canada.
Ryan and Jason Little, brothers 20 and 22 respectively, and their friend Derek Harrison, 23 lived on South Pender at Tilly Point. They were in and out of trouble most of their teenage years on the island. Petty drug offenses, breaking into cabins for liquor, and the occasional bar fight, but for the last couple of years the authorities had noticed that the three friends had quieted down after starting a business on Vancouver Island maintaining boats.
They did start a business maintaining boats, but the truth was that Ryan, Jason and Derek were “borrowing” the boats they maintained and running drugs into the U.S. The boats they maintained and used were American yachts moored on Vancouver Island so the owners could avoid taxes by keeping their boats out of Washington State for at least three months a year. Their plan was simple – they sold a maintenance package that included checks on the boat every week and running it once a month to ensure all systems were fully operational. They even had the owners sign a Certified Letter of Appointment stating they had permission to maintain and run the boat.
The three liked to work the marinas in Sidney area and had a good reputation. Another service they provided the owners was to pick them up, and drop them off, at the Victoria Airport. This way they knew if the owners would be in town, or more importantly, not in town. During the “monthly sea trial,” the boys would run the boat to Echo Bay, Reid Harbor, Eagle Bluff or any number of small anchorages in the U.S where they would transfer the drugs to U.S. based smuggler boats. When the transfers were made, they were handed the dates of the next transfers, as well as coded receipts for their payments.
They called themselves the Pender Pirates and were clearing $25,000 a month each, deposited into accounts in Belize, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. It was easy money and the US Department of Homeland Security had never intercepted them. The Pender Pirates had obtained the owners NEXUS, I-68 and/or BR numbers and simply called Homeland Security and cleared customs via phone posing as the owners under one of the “Trusted Traveler” programs. With fifteen clients, they had never run any one boat more than once a year and on the one occasion DHS asked them to report to Roche Harbor for a physical inspection, they simply returned the boat to Canoe Cove and never used it again for smuggling. They did, however, continue to maintain the boat.
What the Pender Pirates did not know was that the person they were getting their information from, Bahdoon Adey, a Somali classmate of the Pender Pirates was, in fact, working for Suegali Osman, a real, vicious and ruthless pirate responsible for seizing over 60 ships. Suegali runs one of the worlds most profitable pirate empires – the Suegali Warlords. They deal in drugs, weapons, human trafficking and seizing ships. They seize ships for their goods, their scrap or for ransom. The Suegali Warlords, fought and conquered other pirate strongholds around the world. They have bases in Malaysia, India, Syria, Ukraine, Peru and some say account for as much as 50% of the illegal drugs, weapons and human traffic smuggled by boats and ships into the United States and Canada.
The Pender Pirates also had no idea they soon would be receiving directions to smuggle more than drugs and small arms. They did not know that they were being used as patsy’s to make trail runs for a major event from which they were never to return. They did not know that the Suegali Warlords, like the 16th and 17th pirates commissioned by European Governments to harass the Spanish fleets, was commissioned by North Sea Traders in the Netherlands to carry out more than harassment against the US and Canada.
In turn, the Suegali Warlords had no idea that North Sea Traders was funded and run by Global Transnational. Global Transnational knows no boundaries, has no allegiances, and recognizes no nation or state. They meet in the shadows, plan in the shadows and operate in the shadows. Global Transnational answers only to themselves with their motto – “There are 256 Shades of Gray.”
But the Pender Pirates were about to find out that they were going to be ordered to steal a 50-foot Nordhaven from a member of the Bellingham Yacht Club while it is in Poets Cove for the annual BYC End of Year Cruise to smuggle what they believed would be drugs in Victoria then return it to the vessels homeport of Blaine, WA, located on the U.S. Canadian Border.
Will the Pender Pirates steal a boat during the BYC Cruise? Does danger lurk ahead for a late summer cruise for the BYC? Will lives be threatened? What is the relationship between the Shadow Warriors and the Suegali Warlords? Who are North Sea Traders? Will people die? Stay tuned for December’s next Episode.
