I Have Heard Of People Stealing Cars, Boats, Planes And Trains,

well maybe not trains, but I have never heard of some one stealing an island, but some one has, 24 of them in fact! sea reclamation projects in China, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore are driving a black market in Indonesia’s abundant supplies of soil, sand and gravel, in 2007 Indonesia banned the export of its sand and soil and threatened a shoot on sight policy against foreign sand pirates and gravel bandits, but, thanks to corrupt local officials who sign off on permits and turn a blind eye to where the material ends up, the smugglers are winning, above is Anak Krakatau, or Child of Krakatoa, it rose out of the sea and has climbed to more than 300m (1,000ft) at a rate of about a centimetre a day, until recently this also was the site of foreign sand pirates and gravel bandits, but due to a series of accidents and after local fishermen’s observations of the illegal activity were reported in the media, the smugglers slipped quietly away, although difficult to quantify it is thought that up to 300,000 tonnes a month can be claimed from a single island, since 2005 at least 24 small islands have disappeared as a result of erosion caused by sand mining, even where they remain above the waves, the mining process clouds and muddies the sea, devastating fish populations and destroying livelihoods, I wonder how the charge sheet would read, handling stolen property? or would the charge be levied at countries that had bought the sand? just a thought.