So while Egyptian sailors are getting the better of the Somali pirates, European sea faring types are jumping on board the pirate bandwagon in the Atlantic for the first time in 400 years.

On July 24 a Russian cargo ship allegedly “disappeared” in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden “sparking an international naval hunt on the high seas”.

The vessel was recovered Monday off the coast of West Africa by a Russian submarine with all 15 crew still alive and well, plus six pirates from Estonia, Russia and Latvia, after a ransom request backfired.

Now the Russians are saying the international media got it all wrong, the ship never disappeared, they knew where it was all along.

But that’s not the only thing weird about the hijacking, with European political analysts and media outlets the world over suggesting there is a lot more to the story.

While the Russian government says it’s all simple, the Russian media report otherwise.

The majority of international media outlets, as far as I can tell, are saying the motivations for hijacking the vessel, the language spoken by the pirates — indeed the entire sequence of events — is suspicious, with some speculating about the contents of the ship’s cargo and others suggesting it is a Kremlin cover up for drug trafficking.

The Atlantic has an interesting list of explanations including ransome, drugs, pirate coup, and weapons trafficking. Personally I suspect Corey Worthington may have something to do with it.