Piracy off the coast of Venezuela to emerge in 2018. Pirates also make an income by smuggling goods from Trinidad and Tobago into Venezuela, where there is scarcity of numerous common products due to economic issues. With the two countries being two hours apart by water, Venezuelan pirates can receive high profits selling Trinidadian goods in their native country and then return to the island nation to sell discounted Venezuelan contraband. Venezuelans also fear government authorities who are just as desperate, calling law enforcement pirates as well. The violence in the area lead "Trinidad and Tobago Newsday" to name the waters the "Gulf of No Return".
Piracy in the Caribbean in Europe increasingly drove their plantation-based economies. The English had also expanded their dominion in the Caribbean and settled several new islands, including Bermuda in 1612, Antigua and Montserrat in 1632, and Eleuthera in the Bahamas in 1648, though these settlements began like all the others as relatively tiny communities that were not economically self-sufficient. The French also founded major new colonies on the sugar-growing islands of Guadeloupe in 1634 and Martinique in 1635 in the Lesser Antilles. However, the heart of French activity in the Caribbean in the 17th century remained Tortuga, the fortified island haven off the coast