An multinational effort against Somali pirates has resulted in a task force aimed at taking down the organizers, financiers, and negotiators behind the piracy business.

A U.S. State Department official told VOA Thursday The Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia believes there are only a handful of individuals in charge of the criminal enterprise, compared to the large number of young men who are on the seas actually hijacking ships.

The official said The Contact Group hopes that they will be able to identify and detain the leaders, and therefore reduce the number of future attacks. They are planning to do this by tracing the path of ransom money after it is paid, information they will try to gather from captured pirates.

The new working group was established at a meeting of The Contact Group in New York last week. Representatives from more than 70 countries, including the United States, explored ways to prevent the raids, which it says are threatening commerce and humanitarian aid deliveries in one of the world's busiest shipping corridors.

Despite international naval patrols, Somali pirates continue to terrorize shipping in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Seas. The pirates have hijacked dozens of ships and collected hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom over the past few years.