
Gangs of out-of-work fishermen have turned to a life of piracy and have killed dozens who still venture into the sea in Venezuela, as the country's economic crisis worsens.

Once home to the world's fourth-largest tuna fleet, now the fishing trade has collapsed and those who continue to fish are falling prey to the vicious bandits.

Many have been tied up and thrown overboard by pirates, as those with boats opt for illegal ways of making money, such as smuggling and piracy.

Villagers carry the remains of nine slain men from a fishing family to the cemetery in Cariaco, Sucre state, Venezuela. Five law enforcement officers were charged with storming the village and killing these men, who were widely thought to have belonged to a gang

Members of the Marval family, who have fallen victim to bandits - who killed three relatives after taking them captive - fish at night in the sea, in an increasingly dangerous trade

Members of the Marval family, who patrol at night while other members of their family fish at sea, respond to what appeared to be the start of an attack by pirate gang leader 'El Beta' in Punta de Araya

Robberies on the sea have happened daily, leaving scores of fishermen dead.

'People can't make a living fishing anymore, so they're using their boats for the options that remain: smuggling gas, running drugs and piracy,' said Jose Antonio Garcia, leader of the state's largest union.

Teenager Flaco Marval has lost a brother and two cousins to pirates, and has been told they were coming for the rest of the family.

The skinny 17-year-old and his relatives ran to grab the guns they'd soldered together from kitchen pipes, smoked an acrid-smelling drug to boost their energy, and went out into the night to patrol the sandy village streets.

He said: 'We just have to kill these thugs, and then we can go back to fishing like we always did.'

Retired fisherman Victor Duran, 75, from the Marval family, poses for a portrait. Duran's children and grandchildren are carrying on the fishing tradition but facing a phenomenon his generation would have never fathomed - pirates stealing boat motors and killing them out at sea

Family members bring their boat to shore after fishing all night. Dozens of fishermen have been killed by pirates as Venezula's economic crisis worsens

The catch is down to less than a third of the 120,000 tons of tuna Venezuela produced in 2004. In June, Sucre was the epicenter of food riots that swept through the country.

Punta de Araya families got through the summer by eating 'dog soup,' a broth made from seawater and the small fish that are usually thrown back.

'Those little sardines saved all our lives,' library administrator Efren Pares said.

Desperate, Venezuelans are stealing what remains from fatter times, robbing fishing boats of their nets, power generators and outboard motors. The warm Caribbean sea is increasingly becoming a grim free-for-all.

A member of the Marval fishing family who goes by the nickname 'El Chukiti' holds a homemade gun as he guards against a possible pirate attack as fishermen unload their catch in Punta de Araya

Emergency room doctor Norka Patino treats a man who was shot in Cumana, Sucre state, Venezuela. Patino, who's been working at the hospital for over 20 years, said she has to use the same needle on various patients and that many die unnecessarily of heart attacks, diarrhea, asthma and from bacterias picked up at the hospital

Suspects of violent crimes ask police for food, as one holds out money, from inside a holding cell at the municipal police station in Cumana, Sucre state

Seven members of the Marval clan were preparing to return home one night in September when they heard shots.

'There's no way to run when you're stopped dead in the water, so I just started praying, "God, let them leave without hurting us,"' 42-year-old Edecio Marval said.

Instead, after stealing the boat's motor and the night's catch, the men shot dead Edecio's oldest child, who had kept the group laughing all night with cheesy jokes, and two others.

Fishermen rest after selling their catch at the fish market in the port of Cumana, Sucre state, Venezuela. Here on the coast, the tuna catch is down to less than a third of the 120,000 tons Venezuela produced in 2004

Fishermen from the Marval family get some sleep before waking up early to push out to sea before sunrise, at their home in Punta de Araya, Sucre state, Venezuela. Depending on the tide, the men wake around 2am and fish all night until sunrise

As they prepared to kill Edecio's teenage nephew, one pirate shouted for the others to stop. 'No, that's my friend,' he said. They had fished together until last year.

So the group sped off, leaving the surviving Marvals to send flashes of light into the darkness. They wept as the bodies of their loved ones grew cold beside them.

Back home in the village of Punta de Araya, they told police they had recognized the pirates' leader: It was El Beta, a 19-year-old killer with 40 men at his command, who lived a half mile down the road.

El Beta began calling Flaco Marval, threatening to come back and wipe out the whole clan.

Many private fishing companies have left Venezuela for other countries because the government requires them to sell half of their catch for virtually worthless bolivars

Children from the Marval family eat breakfast before going to school in Punta de Araya, Sucre state, Venezuela. After a pirate gang threatened to kill the entire Marval family, some of the clan started keeping their children home from school

'Your brother cried like a little b**** when I killed him. Now I'm coming for all of you snitches,' he said in a taunting voice message the family turned over to police.

Fearful of the gangster, the family, along with their neighbors, gave up going to the state-run hospital up the hill because that area was controlled by El Beta. They also stopped sending their kids to school. And they started nightly patrols.

'It's not safe to leave the house,' said Tibisay Marval, whose son was killed.

'El Menor,' a member of 'Los Cainos' self-defense group formed by the Marval fishing family, holds a homemade gun before starting a night patrol to help protect fishermen from pirate attacks in Punta de Araya

Children play 'pirates' on a fishing boat in Cumana. 'You hear piracy and you think of guys robbing container ships in Africa. But here it's just poor fishermen robbing other poor fishermen,' said Sucre lawyer Luis Morales

Women argue with a National Guard, saying they've detained the wrong men while cracking down on pirates in Punta de Araya

A municipal police officer stands amid stolen engines seized from pirates, at the police station in Punta de Araya

One of Venezuela's poorest states, Sucre had been a bastion of support for the socialist revolution launched by the late President Hugo Chavez. That support is waning since the government nationalized the region's largest fishing company, Pescalba, in 2010, with mostly disastrous results.

On a recent workday, more than half of the company's fleet bobbed uselessly at the dock, holes gaping where the ships' decks and sides had rusted open.

Many private companies have decamped to other countries because the government requires them to sell half of their catch for Venezuela's virtually worthless currency, the bolivar.

A dead dog lies outside deteriorated government-built homes, put up during former President Hugo Chavez's presidency, painted in Venezuela's flag colors in Punta de Araya

Relatives of nine men from a fishing family, who were shot in the head while on their knees, mourn them at the cemetery in the Sucre state. Five law enforcement officers were charged with killing these men, widely thought to have belonged to a gang

The corpses of seven of nine men who were shot in the head while on their knees lie at the morgue in Cariaco, Sucre state, Venezuela

Fishermen from the Marval family give instructions to a skiff towing their boat to sea as they head out for a night of fishing in Punta de Araya

'We fishermen know the meaning of labour, but we can't work if we have nothing to work with,' said 57-year-old Fernando Patino.

In October, pirates left Patino and his brother bound with twine in their small motorized skiff, miles from shore.

Patino managed to wriggle loose, and the men spent seven hours rowing home with a plank of wood torn from the boat's side.

On the night they prepared to face down El Beta, Flaco spotted a soldier darting beneath a streetlight with a Kalashnikov rifle. Soon, the streets were filled with villagers hoping the coast guard had caught a group of pirates.

Suspects of violent crime crowd a holding cell at the municipal police station in Cumana. Police are reluctant to make mass arrests of pirates robbing and killing fishermen at sea because the jails are already packed full

Bit it turned out they had arrested the wrong group, and soldiers let the innocent fishermen go.

Five officers have been charged with storming a nearby village and killing nine members of a fishing family widely thought to have belonged to a gang. State security forces also killed three suspected pirates at sea this year, and arrested one of El Beta's men for the Marval murders.

But officers are reluctant to make mass arrests because the jails are already packed full, with prisoners sleeping in shifts at night.

Mariela Cabello, right, grieves after her brother was killed along with eight other villagers in Cariaco, Sucre state, Venezuela. Five law enforcement officers were charged with storming the village and killing the nine men

'You hear piracy and you think of guys robbing container ships in Africa. But here it's just poor fishermen robbing other poor fishermen,' said Sucre lawyer Luis Morales. 'It's the same kind of crime we've seen in the streets, but spreading to the sea. Tomorrow, it will be taking over life on the farms or in the mountains.'

Shortly after the soldiers left Punta de Araya, the Marval women started getting warnings from friends in El Beta's neighborhood that 15 members of his gang were preparing to attack.

The women debated whether to call back the coastguard and risk being labeled rats. Just as they decided to make the call, the village's power and cell service went out, as if cut by a hostile force. Panicked, they went to alert Flaco and the others.

Jorge Marval naps in his boat under a plastic sheet after fishing all night, as the sun rises off Punta de Araya. The fishing trade has collapsed, along with virtually every industry across Venezuela

The cousins rushed to their armory of homemade handguns and rifles, hidden in a cinderblock hut with a sheet hung for a door.

Laughing at each other's coughing fits, they smoked cocaine-laced marijuana through a long glass pipe they'd fashioned out of a fluorescent light bulb. They tried to psych themselves up for battle by listening again to El Beta's threatening message, crowding around a half-broken flip phone.

'Remember how we used to take naps on the beach with money in our pockets?' one cousin said.

'This isn't going to be over until someone kills that guy,' said another.

Children play inside a depot used by fishermen to store their nets and repair boats in Punta de Araya, Sucre state, Venezuela

Suddenly, the dogs began to bark. The young men shot out to the street to see if the gang was on its way. They kept up their patrol for hours, pausing every once in a while to smoke from the glass pipe.

Eventually, the barking died down. The power came back on. El Beta did not show up.

The Marval women stayed awake until dawn, playing dominos near a shrine to the three slain men. Flaco's aunt Petra Marval said they worry about the cousins, but see no other option.