A fuel tanker has apparently been hijacked and taken into Indonesian waters, Malaysian maritime authorities said Wednesday, August 17, according to the Associated Press.
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Indonesia’s western naval command and its coast guard said they also were searching for the tanker but there was no indication so far it had entered Batam.
The MMEA director-general Ahmad Puzi Ab Kahar tweeted on Wednesday that the ship was now believed to be in the waters off Batam, Indonesia.
Ahmad Puzi Ab Kahar, the director general of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), said the vessel and its cargo are near the Indonesian island of Batam.
However, in 2015 the region was struck by a string of hijackings with criminal gangs targeting slow-moving tankers carrying valuable petrol which they would offload and sell.
The maritime agency said the tanker was reported missing on Tuesday after setting sail from the Tanjung Pelepas port in southern Malaysia a day earlier.
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In June previous year, pirates hijacked the Orkim Victory, a Malaysian tanker, and pumped the oil from it into another tanker before releasing it.
