A Malaysian oil tanker carrying 240,000 gallons of diesel has been hijacked and taken into Indonesian waters, officials confirmed.
MT Vier Harmoni, an Indonesian vessel, and its ten crew members left the port of Tanjung Pelepas on Monday with a cargo worth around £307,000.
It was bound for Terengganu on the east coast of the peninsula, New Straits Times reports, but lost contact with the harbour master on Tuesday evening and apparently left its course.
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The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said the ship has now been traced to the waters off Batam, Indonesia.
Three ship robberies have occurred so far this year near the island, which is located off the southern tip of Singapore.
MMEA director Ahmad Puzi Ab Kahar said the agency had launched a joint operation with Indonesia.
"Initial investigations on the MT Vier Harmoni revealed that the ship was hijacked due to internal problems," he added.
No information has been released regarding who has taken the vessel, but the phrase "internal problems" has been used in the past to "refer to involvement by a ship's crew", says the Straits Times.
Piracy in south-east Asia has declined rapidly this year following increased regional cooperation to monitor the waters, CNN reports. Armed robberies at sea have gone down by 64 per cent and only two hijackings of oil tankers have been reported in the region in 2016, compared to ten in the same period in 2015.
