MANILA -- The Philippine embassy in Nigeria is looking into the arrests of 15 Filipinos last week for allegedly stealing crude oil from the Niger Delta, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Saturday."We are looking into it. The embassy in Abuja is sending people there," said foreign department spokesman Claro Cristobal. Embassy officials would also look into statements by the Filipinos that they were victims of a pirate attack rather than oil thieves, he said. The Filipinos were arrested with a foreign vessel, MT Lina Panama, laden with stolen crude at Brass as they attempted to leave Nigerian territorial waters, a Nigerian official said earlier. The Nation newspaper quoted Rev Chavez, the ship's captain, as saying they knew nothing about the stolen crude and had been attacked by suspected pirates in the region. Chavez told the paper the ship was traveling to Angola from Cotonou, the capital of Benin, when armed men on two boats attacked the ship and locked the crew in a room where they spent several hours before being found by the Nigerian armed forces. Theft of crude oil from the Niger Delta by armed gangs, pirates and their foreign collaborators costs Nigeria millions of dollars every year. The past two years have seen an upsurge in militant activities in the region with frequent attacks on foreign oil companies and a wave of kidnappings of expatriate employees. | 
