The 16,785-ton Cheung Sing was one of hundreds of tramp steamers plying up and down the coast of China until two months ago, when the Panama-registered ship took on a load of furnace slag at Shanghai and set off for Malaysia.
In the straits of Taiwan it was approached by a speed-boat. Several men threw ropes with grappling irons at the ship's rail and climbed aboard. Shortly afterwards, the Cheung Sing's radio fell silent and the ship disappeared. No one knew the fate of the crew until two weeks ago, when fishermen from Shantou dredged up seven bodies, three of which have been identified as seamen from the ill-fated ship.
They had been bound, hanged and shot - the modern version of hanged, drawn and quartered - by the raiders, and weights tied to their bodies before being dumped in the sea. The pirates, wielding automatic weapons rather than cutlasses, then partied on board, with one of their number taking photographs.
The Cheung Sing was the latest ship to fall foul of a new and ruthless breed of pirate in the South China Sea who are causing great alarm among shipping companies. Pirates have always been a problem in the region, but before now the raiders would normally free the ship and crew after taking valuables and destroying radio equipment. Recently, as economic conditions worsened with the South Asia crisis, they have resorted to killing the crew and stealing the vessel itself.
This fate apparently also befell the 14 Chinese and two Korean crew members of the Panama-registered Tenyu, another steamer owned by a Japan-based shipping company, which went missing in late September in the Straits of Malacca while bound from Indonesia for South Korea with 3,600 tons of aluminium ingots.
On December 21st, the general engineer of the port of Zhangjiagang in eastern China spotted the ship trading under a different name and carrying a cargo of palm oil. It had been renamed Sane-1 and all the 16 seamen aboard were Indonesian.
They said they had boarded the vessel in Burma, but local police reportedly suspect them to be the pirates and have assumed that the original crewmen were murdered and thrown to the sharks.
A third ship, steaming from a South China port to Taiwan, has been missing since its radio went dead at midnight on December 26th, and its owners in Hainan province fear the worst.
The violence at sea worsened sharply towards the end of 1998, said Mr Noel Choong, regional manager at the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur.
"We've been seeing a lot of hijacked ships where we have crews missing and, I believe, killed. It's a major concern for us. We call for strong government action to wipe out piracy in Asian waters before it gets out of control."
According to the International Maritime Organisation, worldwide piracy and maritime crimes have increased in recent years. The situation on the South China Sea has become particularly serious, with 101 cases in 1997 alone, a number greater than on the Strait of Malacca, where piracy is common.
The pirates are intent now not just on stealing the cargo but the ship itself. Chinese security police have advised ships' crews to be on the alert and have high-powered hoses ready at all times to repel boarders. The use of defensive weapons is discouraged for fear it would mean shooting wars at sea.
Meanwhile, security officials in Shenzhen, in southern China, believe they have caught the pirates who seized the Cheung Sing. Seven men were arrested this week after police found a photograph taken by a pirate as his mates celebrated the massacre of the crew members.
According to Hong Kong newspaper reports they have admitted being paid the equivalent of £8,000 each for their night's work.