In the Philippines press, four Malaysians were reportedly abducted in Sabah, Malaysia on June15, 2016 on Wednesday night, according to Senior Supt Joselito Salido, the provincial police director of Tawi-Tawi.

That could be true although the inspector-general of police, Khalid Abu Bakar, said the police were still awaiting confirmation from the Philippines authorities.

I would like to share this experience related to me with our PM/DPM/Home Minister/Defence Minister/Musa Aman/Adenan Satem. There have been a lot of acts of piracy and kidnappings without those involved letting the police know. The fishermen would just pay off the demand of ransom and pass on the ransom to consumers, and that is why seafood is so expensive.

The modus operandi is like that, as I was told by a fisherman with a big boat, and the pirates would come up to the boat at night using hooks and armed with guns and demand ransom from the victims on the boat and money to be sent off by ATMs/transfer to bank accounts.

The story goes the pirates would demand like RM100,000 and then once that money had gone through and the victims thought they would go home, but not so as another RM100,000 for the next kidnapper and so on for each kidnapperson boat (a workable strategy), and it could be four, five or six kidnappers.

The police would not be informed or there would be no deal with the victims to stay alive. So only God knows how many such acts of piracy and kidnappings have occurred in the past decades that go unreported but resolved on the fishing boats.

Despite as much as about RM1.3 billion being given to Esscom since 2013, with RM660 million in 2014 and RM523 million in Budget 2016, not much improvement to the security in the area has been observed. So has the government really spent the said amount in the achieving the targets? Where are the two submarines worth over RM7 billion in securing the deep Sulu and Mindanao Seas east of Sabah?

In the meantime, how would the demand of RM30 million for the four recent Sarawakian victims to be set free, and the alleged payment in cash of RM12 million on June 7 or 8, 2016 but only RM8.8 million allegedly reaching the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers? So how would we understand the perception of ransom that had reached so low below the initial demand so that that the victims could be released?

Were the four victims already in the hands of the ‘authority’ when the money reached Abu Sayyaf? The said RM12 million were allegedly delivered to the Malaysian police by the local bank in Sandakan in 12 metal boxes on May 24, 2016 and yet the victims were freed on June 7 or 8, 2016, a delay of two weeks.

Why did the money take two weeks to move into the hands of the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers? Isn’t it a very important that the ransom money reach the kidnappers as soon as possible to secure their release before any unfortunate eventuality that could happen to them due to the delay in delivery of the cash unnecessarily?

What actually happened in the two weeks when cash of such amounts were in transit? Maybe the police on both sides share this challenge about the delay. What actually happened to the difference of RM3.2 million not received by Abu Sayyaf is another issue that had emerged later?

Would the whole episode be ever be told? Would kidnappings and acts of piracy be things of the past soon around Sabah?