Was ransom money funneled to Boko Haram?
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Capt. Wren Thomas was kidnapped from his ship off Nigeria
- He was held in jungles and swamps while captors demanded ransom
- During debriefing, FBI said ransom could fund Boko Haram terror group, Thomas says
His goal: to be a ship captain, "the best that I could be."
"It meant strength,
accomplishment,' he said when he finally was made a captain in 1991 and
traveled the world for various shipping firms. With a wife, eventually
three children and boat to lead, Capt. Wren Thomas had achieved his
piece of the American dream.
"I wanted to be in charge of my own destiny,'' he recalled during an interview in his attorney's Houston office.
River between life and death
Boko Haram victim: I was left to die
All of that came crashing
down on October 23, 2013 when Thomas was piloting his supply boat, the
C-Retriever off the coast of Nigeria towards a Chevron-owned oil field.
Over the next six hours,
he would huddle with his crew in an incredibly hot, water-sealed tank
room as a half-dozen pirates stormed his boat and began their siege
looking for their prize: the American captain and his American-born
engineer. Thomas reluctantly gave up when the pirates started firing
guns through a hole in the room door. He told his engineer they had no
choice if the rest of the 13-member crew, still in hiding, was to be
spared.
"I told him, 'Look I
think it's time we give up. If we don't give up we are either going to
die or somebody is going to get killed from ricocheting bullets.'"
Thomas and his engineer
were the only ones to be kidnapped by the pirates, driven away in a
speed boat and held in Nigerian swamps and jungles for 18 days. The
experience was so horrific that even today Thomas is unable to bring
himself to reveal all details of his captivity.
"We weren't being punched
or kicked or anything like that but just I've told people that I would
have rather been punched then went through what I went through," Thomas
said. "The mental abuse of it with the guns pointing at you. And knowing
how unstable these guys are."
Thomas said there were
about 18 Nigerian kidnappers, some chain-smoked marijuana or crack
incessantly, constantly waving their weapons and making threats.
Food consisted of
instant noodles -- on days the negotiations were going well -- and maybe
a bottle of water. And his captors blared their music constantly,
fixated on, of all things, country singer Dolly Parton's song, "Coat of
Many Colors," and the music of hip hop artist 50 Cent.
"I knew I was going to die. We knew it every day, every night," he said.
Despite the chaos in the
jungle, Thomas said the leaders were organized, using satellite phones
to negotiate, first demanding a $2 million ransom. Thomas believes the
payoff was eventually whittled down to several hundred thousand dollars,
though CNN cannot confirm who paid the ransom or who received it.
Thomas said one evening
he and his engineer were told to get in a small boat with six pirates.
They motored for about two hours to reach a village. There, four of the
pirates got out and met some other men who handed them backpacks, Thomas
told CNN. They returned to the boat and counted the cash stuffed into
the bags. After a dispute, Thomas says he and the engineer were taken to
the other men and told to lie on the ground until the pirates left.
Then they were put in a car and driven off. Later they were transferred
to a second car, where a representative from the shipping company was
waiting for them. At that point they were finally free, 18 days after
being seized at gunpoint.
After a debriefing by
his ship managers, then a similar one by the FBI in Lagos, Nigeria,
Thomas returned to the United States last November, days after his
release. He has been seeing mental health advisers and other medical
professionals since.
But his hostage-taking
and the negotiations that freed him have raised alarm bells in
counterterrorism circles and elsewhere for numerous reasons; not the
least is Thomas' claim that the FBI told him the money paid for his
freedom may eventually have wound up in the hands of the notorious
terror group Boko Haram.
That is the same group
that in April kidnapped nearly 300 Nigerian girls. They're also blamed
for laying waste to multiple villages in the northern part of the
country, burning them down and killing many people in bomb attacks.
Thomas said during his
debriefing in Lagos the FBI indicated that the money paid for his
freedom may have been funneled through other groups before making its
way to Boko Haram. The FBI would not comment. CNN cannot independently confirm whether Boko Haram received any money from the kidnapping.
Yan St-Pierre, CEO of Modern Security Consulting Group,
said his contacts believe Boko Haram, once confined strictly to the
northern parts of Nigeria, is benefiting from the increase in piracy
along the west coast of Africa. But the group is perhaps not directly
carrying out the kidnappings itself.
"So when people are
asking, is there a link between Boko Haram and piracy in Nigeria, it's
not the one they usually expect it to be,'' said St-Pierre, whose firm
was not involved in the Thomas case. "It's one that is not necessarily
logistical and operational. It's one that is more subtle. Essentially
they will probably provide personnel every now and then, but it's not a
fixed structure. So we are talking more (about) providing means to wash
the money, to clean it. To make sure the smuggling routes, personnel,
sex slaves, drugs, weapons above all else, these pirates need weapons.
"So if Boko Haram
provided the weapons in advance for example and said, 'Well we will get a
cut of the ransom,' which is standard policy within these groups within
the region in general, this would make absolute sense to say, well the
ransom money that was paid for the captain ended up at the very least
partially into Boko Haram's hands, quite probably as a payment for
services delivered."
Major oil companies have
an official policy of not paying ransom for personnel or the thefts of
fuel and ships on the high seas. And subsidiary companies, like Capt.
Thomas' employer Edison Chouest, aren't talking, so it is unclear if they, too, have the same policy.
It is against U.S. law
to deal with terrorists but that issue becomes murky when dealing with
ransoms for captives because so many middle men are involved,
counterterrorism sources said; it is hard to say who is a terrorist and
who is just a common criminal.
Piracy off the coast of Nigeria is on the rise, according to one study published by Oceans Beyond Piracy,
a project of the One Earth Foundation. By contrast, piracy off Somalia
-- on the other side of the African continent -- dropped dramatically in
2013 to only 23 vessels attacked from 237 ships attacked in 2011, the same group reported.
In West Africa, the group estimates there were at least 100 total
piracy attacks and characterized them as more violent and frequent.
Thomas, in a series of
emails, says he warned his company, Edison Chouset, that security was
deteriorating and he feared some of his own Nigerian crew members. His
attorney shared two of the emails with CNN.
In one email to his
operations coordinator, Thomas, summing up his fear of the security
situation, wrote "I am also asking to not to return to Nigeria."
Thomas said company
officials told him things would improve but never did. On the day he set
out on his fateful trip, Thomas said dock workers announced over
two-way radio where the ship was going and what supplies it was
carrying. He said those communications left them doomed before they ever
got to their destination.
"The pirates (later)
told me they knew where we was going ... they knew my cargo, they knew
my position, they knew the track I was taking."
CNN made multiple attempts to contact Edison Chouest for comment but the company refused to return multiple calls or an email.
Thomas said two
representatives from the company stayed near his wife in their hometown
during his ordeal and the FBI was also in contact. But once he was
freed, the communications virtually ended. It wasn't until January that
someone from the company offered to assist in his medical care and other
financial needs, he said.
Thomas is now consulting
with a Houston attorney on his next move as he says he is medically
unable to return to his overseas duties as a ship captain.
"Life is hell for me
now," Thomas said. "Life will never be the same again. The man that my
wife married is not the same anymore....I walk around all day paranoid.
I'm sad. I can't sleep. My family is hurt."
Earlier this year, Thomas finally broke his silence, giving an in-depth interview to a shipping newsletter gCaptain. He is talking now, he says, so others don't face the same fate.
His attorney, Brian
Beckcom, represented members of the Maersk Alabama crew that served with
Capt. Richard Philips, whose capture by Somali pirates was made into a
movie starring Tom Hanks. He said he believes these companies owe crew
members, like Thomas, the same level of protection now provided to crews
off the Somalian coast.
"Now all the ships in
East Africa have armed guards, or most do, and piracy has plummeted in
East Africa. West Africa is now the hotspot and there is no question
that these companies are making hundreds of millions in (oil) profits
should do something more than they're doing to protect the men that work
over there," Beckcom said.
