Hassan indicated in an interview with the Spanish daily newspaper ABC that there was "no political relationship, only one based on money", adding that he was paying 5 percent of his ransom profits as a security fee.
[3] In 2010 Hassan received an official pardon from Mohamed Aden ("Tiiceey"), who was at the time the governor of Somalia's south-central Himan and Heeb region.
A 2011 UN report asserted that Hassan had used his ransom profits to purchase the drug khat in Kenya for later resale to pirates in Harardhere and elsewhere along Somalia's coast.
[3] In 2012 a leaked UN report alleged that Hassan was "one of the most notorious and influential leaders of the Hobyo-Harardhere Piracy Network", an area in the autonomous Himan & Heeb region in south-central Somalia.
According to Mohamed Adan, chief of the local Adado administration, municipal officials were successful in persuading Hassan and other pirate commanders to disarm, as the bosses had come to the realization that they could no longer function with impunity and profits had dropped.
[1] Following the establishment of a new federal government in Somalia, Hassan embarked on negotiations for an agreement on a national amnesty and rehabilitation program for pirates.
A series of meetings brokered by Tiiceey were then held between senior officials with the Somali Federal Government and top commanders of the Hobyo-Harardhere Piracy Network.
Hassan simultaneously established the Anti-Piracy Agency in Mogadishu and sought government and international funding for an initiative that envisioned the creation of rehabilitation, skills-training camps for reformed pirates.
Additionally, Hassan and his son attempted to negotiate a Grand Bargain, wherein all of the remaining captives held by the Hobyo-Harardhere Network would be released in exchange for a reported $2 million payment from the Somali federal authorities.