Lagos — A group of ten armed men has reportedly carried out another heist in the Gulf of Mexico, taking equipment, tools, materials and other items from a Campeche Bay oil platform owned by the Mexican state oil firm Pemex.
While Pemex has yet to react publicly to reports of an assault, the local press said the incident was confirmed by anonymous Pemex sources to had occurred last Tuesday.
The armed group arrived in three vessels, forcing the hostages, including employees of Pemex and its contractor Evya, to load them with various goods they stole from the site.
The navy’s maritime traffic control center was notified of the crime at 22,20 hrs local time, some 20 minutes after the heist had ended. There were no reports of injuries.
There has been a rise in incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the Gulf of Mexico in the past few years. Armed criminal groups have been reported to target and loot commercial vessels, oil platforms, and offshore supply vessels in the Bay of Campeche area in the southern Gulf of Mexico.
The most notable recent attack took place just under a month after an armed group of at least five people illegally boarded the offshore support vessel Crest Tarasco working for Pemex, and stole goods worth around $75,000.
*Splash 247
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