Armed individuals boarded a Maltese-flagged cargo ship off Somalia early on Thursday. Maritime security sources said they had fired gunshots and rocket-propelled grenades at the vessel. The Maltese-flagged Hellas Aphrodite ship was carry gasoline and was headed to South Africa from India. The European Union's naval force combating piracy off the Horn of Africa, Operation Atalanta, said that one of its vessels was near the attack site and was en route to provide assistance.
Stealing intellectual property (IP) assets such as music and movies diverts revenue away from American businesses, which leads to fewer jobs for a range of American workers in the entertainment industry. Some countries in the world actively address this pirating through enforcement of site blocking by their respective national Internet Service Providers. However, the United States is not one of them, in part due to governmental pressure from certain Big Tech companies.
In August 2024, HSI seized several domains belonging to the Streameast piracy network, including some backup domains. After the seizure, trying to access those sites resulted in a pop-up from HSI stating, 'THIS DOMAIN HAS BEEN SEIZED.' At the time, Streameast was one of the most well-known sites in the US for watching sporting events, including from the NBA, NFL, and MLB, illegally.