Fijian police are investigating an unverified video purporting to show Fijian fishermen being shot at by men aboard another vessel, although the “fishermen” may be Somali pirates.

The video was believed to have been found on a mobile phone left in a taxi on Suva’s Queen Elizabeth Parade and then uploaded to YouTube by user commonkingssavou. It shows a number of Asian men posing for photographs aboard a commercial vessel after shooting and killing three men swimming in the water near a small capsized boat.

It is impossible to verify or accurately determine the location of the footage, but as a number of other commercial fishing vessels can be seen in the video, it is unlikely that the crews aboard them would stand by and watch innocent fishermen being shot and killed. A Fijian government official has also insisted that they do not know of any such incidents involving three missing Fijian fisherman.

Mandarin, Thai and Vietnamese can be heard being spoken during the video, and one of the other commercial vessels shown in the video, marked Chun I No 217, appears to be Taiwanese.

Taiwanese commercial tuna fishing vessels have been known to make large catches in the waters off Somalia, and the Taiwan Deep Sea Tuna Longline Boat-owners Association is known to have hired armed guards protect the vessels after a number of incidents of piracy, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.