Behind the FBI's hunt for a Somali pirate leader

Stream all new episodes of "FBI TRUE" beginning June 20, exclusively on Paramount+. 

In February 2011, ignoring warnings of high-seas piracy, Jean and Scott Adam and Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle sailed across the Indian Ocean in a 58-foot-yacht called the Quest. The Adams were members of the Del Rey Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey, California.

About 200 miles from Oman, 19 Somali pirates stormed their vessel, taking the Americans hostage.

Now an FBI agent involved in the hunt across Africa for the negotiator who coordinated their ransom is opening up for the upcoming edition of the Paramount+ series "FBI TRUE." (Paramount+ is owned by CBS News' parent company, Paramount Global.)

"A sailboat with four Americans was pirated off of Africa," said Rob D'Amico, then the FBI's liaison to the Department of Defense Special Mission Units. "They thought, 'Well, that's America, we'll get that money.'"

A joint operation involving the FBI and the U.S. Navy rushed to the scene to try to save the hostages. D'Amico, then based in North Carolina, raced to Virginia Beach to get aboard a plane to reach the Navy ships in the region. He was aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier nearby when the pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade.

"Then all of a sudden, I remember it like looking down at the Quest and just these bursts of gunfire," D'Amico said. "The SEAL commander basically gave the go for emergency assault."

D'Amico recalled seeing the Navy SEALS onboard the yacht and pirates coming up from below with their hands up.

"And while we're arresting them all of a sudden, you can hear the medic starting to say, you know, 'urgent surgical,'" D'Amico said. "We've been overseas enough that 'urgent surgical' is not good to hear. ... And then you see guys starting to do CPR. And we heard one 'urgent surgical,' you heard 'two,' you heard 'three,' and you heard 'four.' And I'm like, uh..."

All four Americans and four pirates were killed.

The FBI, working with international partners in Africa, then set out to identify and track down the pirates' lead negotiator.

One of the pirates arrested aboard the Quest gave investigators a phone number of someone they believed was the mastermind. It led to a hotel room in Galkayo, Somalia, where they found Mohammad Shibin. The military forces D'Amico was working with believed Shibin was part of the militant group al-Shabaab. Shibin denied he was involved in the kidnapping and gave the investigators his phone to prove it. One of D'Amico's partners took screenshots of everything on his phone and gave it back to Shibin.

"The pirates have a negotiator that's on land that basically, they work out the ransom for the yacht and the hostages," D'Amico says.  "We find out Mr. Shibin is this negotiator."

D'Amico and his team could not simply grab Shibin. They had to follow the law and find a way to get him, connect the phone to the Quest incident, and then arrest him.

Shibin, however, was hopscotching across Africa.

Eventually, Shibin was tracked down to a tea shop in Bosaso, Somalia. But he didn't have his phone with him. D'Amico, though, had the pictures. Shibin admitted the images were of his phone and the searches from it, and he was arrested. Had he not previously handed investigators his phone in Galkayo, they would never have had the evidence to tie him to the Quest murders.

"You know, criminals do some dumb things," D'Amico said.

Fourteen pirates were tried, and 11 pled guilty to piracy and received sentences ranging from 21 years to life. Three were tried and convicted of piracy, murder and other charges.

Shibin was also brought to the U.S., tried and found guilty of nine charges, including piracy. He is serving multiple life sentences.

D'Amico retired from the FBI in 2021.

"Looking back on it," D'Amico said, "One, it was an unbelievable team effort to bring this guy to justice in the right way, preserving all his rights. Truly, that's what I'm most proud of — to bring this one person back and then to have him sit in a court of law just like anyone else and get convicted by a jury."

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