The day 19 November, Ship Virginio Fasan has intercepted and detained a group of six people suspected of piracy. The six, all of Somali nationality, aboard two small boats, had attempted to board a container ship and a deep-sea fishing boat in the previous days, flying the Panamanian and Seychelles flags respectively. The events took place between the 17 and November 19 at around 320 nautical miles SE from the Somali coast at the height of the city of Mogadishu, in the Indian Ocean.
The action, directed by the commander at sea of the operation EU NAVFOR Somalia - Atalanta, rear-admiral Fabio Gregori embarked on Nave Virginio Fasan, saw the joint intervention of the Italian frigate, with the helicopter on board and the team of the San Marco marine brigade, as well as a Spanish maritime patrol plane (MPRA), also belonging to the European Operation Forces Atalanta.
In particular, Nave Fasan he was on 17 November on patrol at about 60 nautical miles from the south coast of Somalia, when he received information about a pirate attack on the container ship. The military unit then headed at the maximum speed towards the position of the event, while the Spanish patrol plane was ordered to fly over the same sea area to carry out a thorough research in the area.
The same aircraft, during the morning of November 18, acquired news that a fishing boat had also been attacked by a group of armed pirates. Intensifying searches in the area, on the evening of November 18, the helicopter on board of Nave Fasan has succeeded in identifying two small boats in a position that is consistent and can be correlated with that of the occurred attacks.
The morning of the 19 November Ship Fasan has approached some small boats to carry out the inspection of the personnel and the load. The characteristic elements found during the inspection of the vessels allowed to recognize the latter as the boats responsible for the attacks on the merchant units. This was possible also thanks to the photographic information and the testimonies provided by the crews of the same.
These evidences, together with the groundlessness and inconsistency of some information provided by the six suspects during the inspection, led the commander of Nave Fasan, cf Sebastiano Rossitto, to proceed with the arrest of the crews.
Following the detention, the suspected pirates were brought on board the frigate Virginio Fasan waiting for further investigations to be concluded in order to confirm the possibility of pursuing them legally by virtue of the existing international agreements on the matter between the European Union and the most active coastal states in the fight against piracy.
