The pirates' latest strike was off the coast of India, hundreds of miles from their usual haunts.

On Dec. 5, sea bandits hijacked the MV Jahan Mori, a Bangladeshi freighter carrying 41,000 tons of nickel ore from Indonesia bound for Greece. The pirates seized the 25 Bangladeshis, including the wife of one of the crewmen, aboard. The hijacked vessel was seen heading toward Somalia.

The Somali marauders currently hold 23 ships and 531 crewmembers, the EU Naval Force, one of the international units patrolling the Gulf of Aden, says.

The seizure of the Jahan Mori was the furthest east the pirates have been reported, apparently driven from home waters by the naval task forces that usually number around 40 warships and supply vessels from 30 countries.

But it's a process that's been under way for more than a year after several pirate teams were captured by international forces.

Hijackings have been reported off the Seychelles and Madagascar 1,000 miles south of the Gulf of Aden. One ship was seized 1,300 nautical miles east of Somalia earlier this year.

These days, the pirates also prey on shipping in the Red Sea, north of the Gulf of Aden, where international naval forces lack clear authority to go after the marauders.

Foreign navies have U.N. Security Council mandates to hunt pirates in Somalia's territorial waters with advance notice using "all necessary means." But the Red Sea is beyond their jurisdiction.

"Despite an unprecedented deployment of international naval assets, this year has once again seen a record number of successful attacks in the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean," said Christian Le Miere of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London think tank.

"The attacks have been displaced further out into the ocean, at times 1,000 nautical miles from the coast of Somalia, stretching the resources of the international naval deployers."

"What's allowed them to do this is the acquisition of larger mother ships, such as large fishing trawlers and midsize cargo ships," said analyst Ben West of the Texas global security consultancy Stratfor.

"We've also noticed more recently they've been leapfrogging. For example, they can hijack a fishing vessel or a cargo ship maybe 500 or 600 miles from the coast of Somalia, and instead of taking it back to Somalia, they … go further east."

Adm. Hank Ort of the Netherlands navy, who commanded the NATO naval force earlier this year, said the lack of employment prospects in war-torn Somalia and the lure of easy money led many men to join the pirates.

The ransoms demanded by the pirates are increasing. The average is around $12 million per ship and crew. Ship owners pay an average of $10 million per ship, usually in deals brokered through middlemen in Kenya and the United Arab Emirates.

According to Clayton Consultants, a U.S. security firm, the negotiations now last twice as long as they did in 2009.

The number of ship hijackings in the Gulf of Aden has fallen over the last year or so, with U.S. and European warships driving off pirate attacks or rescuing crews aboard pirate-held vessels.

U.S. Marines from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit boarded the German-owned MV Magellan Star container ship in the gulf Sept. 9, capturing nine pirates who had seized it the day before off Yemen.

Russian naval infantry recaptured a Russian-owned oil tanker, the Moscow University, May 6 after a short firefight.

But ship owners are increasingly opting to take the protection of their vessels into their own hands rather than rely on the international armada in the Gulf of Aden and turn their ships in floating fortresses.

This is particularly true of the Germans, who own the world's third-largest commercial fleet. They drape razor wire around the ships to deter boarders, install sonar cannons or laser guns to deafen and blind attackers.

But the favored tactic seems to be a steel-walled safe room, or "citadel," where crewmen can hide and control the vessel while radioing for help.

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