Farah and Diiriye say their aim is to hijack a medium-sized vessel deep in the Indian Ocean and then make it back to their mother ship, using its GPS tracking system to find bigger ships to target.

“You’ll assault the ships the use of mini velocity boats,” says Farah.

Their Bazooka rocket launcher is also an essential part of their strategy.

“We usefulness the RPG to forbid the send. When the send doesn’t forbid, we execute over it. We don’t explode. The try is to get one thing, to not explode. [The aim is] to frighten them,” says Diiriye.

All this weaponry does not come cheap – so the gangs essentially seek funding from interested investors. The disgruntled fishermen put out feelers and a syndicate is formed often involving different businessmen from the cities of Garowe and Bosaso.

One may fund the boats, another the weapons and a third sundries like fuel. These entrepreneurs sometimes invest in several groups in the hope that one of them will hit the jackpot when a vessel is captured so they can get their cut of the ransom.

And it is easy to get hold of a gun in Somalia – even in Eyl you can pick up an AK-47 for about $1,200, a legacy of its two-decade civil war and years of lawlessness.

Farah and Diiriye say they were not involved in the piracy boomtime and have not taken any advice from retired pirates, some of whom also started out as disgruntled fishermen.

Most of these old pirates have left the area – often they have gone abroad or have repented.

In one famous case a former pirate – Abdirahman Bakeyle – gave away his wealth. In 2020, he donated the houses and hotels he had bought in Garowe to Muslim charities and is now a travelling preacher going from town to town in Puntland urging people to lead an austere and morally upright life.

Adado, a town in central Somalia where pirates once invested, earned the nicknamed “Blue Town” because their newly built mansions often had blue-painted iron sheet roofs.

A good deal of these houses now lie empty – or available to rent for as little as $100 a month.

In Eyl, the town elders say the main legacy of piracy is the prevalence of alcohol, often smuggled in from Ethiopia, and drugs such as opioids – with concerns that some young men who already chew the stimulant leaf khat, a popular afternoon pastime, are becoming addicts.

The men who gather outside teashops in the afternoons to play dominoes and discuss the news say they do not approve of piracy – although they understand the enmity towards foreign ships.

The recent incident of the three fishermen who were shot dead clearly rankles with many.

Ali Mursal Muse, who has been fishing for lobsters and sharks off Eyl for about 40 years to support his wife and 12 children, believes they may have been mistaken for pirates – as he was years ago.

“We left right here with every other fishing boat and going to the ocean. On the identical week pirates attempted to hijack a boat. A aircraft got here. My boat got here to the shore; the alternative fishing boat was once attacked,” he remembers.

Forty-year-old widow Hawa Mohamed Zubery believes her husband suffered the same fate 14 years ago when he went missing.

This was when piracy was at its peak and she had just given birth to a son, whom they wanted to circumcise.

“My husband was once pondering that if he stuck a shark later shall we pay to have the newborn circumcised,” she tells the BBC, clearly still distressed about his death. She says she struggles to pay school fees for her children from her living selling samosas.

Mr Muse says the main issue for him these days is the unethical behaviour of fishing fleets from countries like Iran and Yemen which often steal his equipment.

He believes they are issued with fake Somali fishing licences by powerful local backers who also provide them with gunmen for protection. He accused them of looting their catches and muscling in on their fishing grounds.

“They have got a zone they paintings and so they even come at the seaside. Once we travel and ask for our apparatus again, they execute at us. Not too long ago, they harm some public. They shot a boy, wounding his hand and leg.”

The fisherman says he has complained to the local authorities on multiple occasions, but nothing is ever done.

Puntland’s Information Minister Caydid Dirir admits the presence of some illegal vessels and says some foreign ships may be granted licences and “waste them”.

“Unlawful fishing exists in all seas, and piracy can happen anyplace. Journey is being made progressively,” he tells the BBC.

Illegal fishing has been a controversial issue in Somalia for many years.

Many fishing vessels operate without licences or with licences issued by bodies without the authority to do so, according to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime.

It quotes evidence, including satellite navigational data, to show that many of the vessels originate from China, Iran, Yemen and south-east Asia. A report from the US embassy in Mogadishu suggests Somalia loses $300m each year as a result.

Operation Atalanta’s Rear Admiral Manuel Alvargonzález Méndez says his forces only target pirate vessels and now also have to protect ships from Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

But he maintains the area is much safer and Somalis can now “forged their fishing nets with out concern” – as does the Puntland Maritime Police Force, which works closely with the EU naval mission.

Its commander Farhan Awil Hashi is confident that it will not return to the “wicked worn days” of piracy.

He believes the long-term answer is “activity establishing”.

“Younger public should get jobs, all the time. If the individual is busy doing one thing, they are going to no longer take into consideration heading to the ocean and hijacking ships,” he tells the BBC.

Farah and Diiriye make the same argument – they say because fishing no longer pays, hijacking a ship for ransom is the only way they can support their children.

They know piracy is wrong – and Diiriye admits he is too scared to tell his own mother.

“If she knew, she can be very disillusioned. In truth, she would tell the government.”