Apparently, what happens in international waters, stays in international waters. If pirates are caught by, say, the Dutch Navy, the pirates are often immediately escorted back to Somalia, after being rewarded the complimentary case of Heineken. Forward to last week: the Russians foiled a pirate take-over of one of their own ships. When asked about the fate of the pirates, Vladimir Putin responded thusly:

“Ahhhh, it seems they have all died…of natural causes. We caught them, we had coffee, we smoked, and we let them go.  They took off in their little ship, and we waved goodbye.  We even gave them the complimentary Heineken. All seemed well. Then, it seems, er…they all died. We don’t know why. Not by us, I can assure you. We seem to be missing some bullets, but we see no correlation. One minute they were there, the next “poof” their gone. What a mystery, heh? We looked for them, but to no avail. The Heineken bottles were recovered and consumed by my men. We are shrugging our collective Russian shoulders over the whole thing.”

Thank you, Vlad baby, for “dieing” those pirates for us, wink-wink-nudge-nudge. Your testicles are certainly growing. You will need a wheelbarrow for them soon, no? As they say in Italy, when you have oversized nuts, “Walk-a proud, Vlad.  Walk-a proud.”