Somali gunmen are demanding a $1 million ransom for a retired French couple captured aboard a yacht sailing through the pirate-ridden waters of the Gulf of Aden. Maritime officials said that an armed gang was sailing the Carré d’As towards a remote fishing village used as a buccaneer den.

Meanwhile a hijacked Egyptian vessel was also reported to be on a heading for Eyl, in the semi-autonomous Somali region of Puntland, where as many as ten other captured vessels are lying at anchor.

There has been a record haul this year for the pirates. They have attacked more than 30 vessels off Somalia’s lengthy coastline in a racket worth millions of pounds.

Jean-Yves and Bernadette Delanne were seized aboard their 16m (50ft) yacht on Tuesday on their way from Australia to France. Yesterday their daughter, Alizee, said that she had managed to speak to them by satellite telephone. She told a radio station in Tahiti, where her parents live, that they were fine.

Piracy was all but stamped out two years ago when the Union of Islamic Courts took control of Somalia and made a series of attacks on pirate hide-outs. But they resumed business after the Islamists were defeated at the end of 2006. Two weeks ago the pirates hijacked four vessels in two days – a record haul – and the stretch of water from the Gulf of Aden into the Indian Ocean is now considered the most dangerous in the world.

A faltering Somali Government has been unable to control its capital, Mogadishu, much less its waters. Instead a coalition of international naval vessels has stepped up patrols in the region.

A spokesman for the French military said that its armed forces were on standby, ready to intervene. “French military means are present in the area, in Djibouti, which is a major military base, and at sea with the frigate Courbet,” said Christophe Prazuck in Paris.

In April French commandos captured six suspected pirates after a yacht and its crew of 30 were held for a week. The men are awaiting trial in France.

Today’s pirates who plunder the Indian Ocean bear little resemblance to the romanticised marauders of old. They stand at the heart of a global network of international criminal gangs using the internet and satellite phones to pick out lucrative targets.

Andrew Mwangura, who monitors piracy for the Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, based in the Kenyan port of Mombasa, said that the trade was growing in appeal for young men with few other options in a country riven by violence, anarchy and hunger.

Three years ago there were no more than about 100 pirates, he said. Today, the number is 1,000.

“There have been a lot of gunmen joining the pirate gangs. They are making good business and it is an attractive choice for many young men at the moment,” he said.

Contacts in Europe identify vessels that will command a hefty ransom and follow their voyage until they are within range of the gangs. The gunmen often use hijacked vessels as “mother ships” to extend their range, launching smaller, faster speedboats, some mounted with heavy machine-guns much like the technical battle-wagons used by militias on land. They also pose as fishermen in traditional Arab dhows to escape detection.

The International Maritime Bureau tells vessels to stay 200 miles off the Somali coast and the United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution clearing the way to chase the pirates inside Somali territorial waters. A multinational taskforce – including the Royal Navy frigate Montrose – is now patrolling them.

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