Nic Cage Is All Over This Pirate Problem, Savvy?

Financially crippled actor makes his way to Kenya to meet with imprisoned Somali pirates in role as U.N. Ambassador for Drugs and Crime

Nicolas Cage clearly felt he owed one to the pirate community. Either that, or he was hoping they'd help him out with a much-needed booty haul.

The financially drained thesp and, as it happens, U.N. Ambassador on Drugs and Crime, paid a visit to Kenya this week where he met with imprisoned Somali pirates to find out what exactly is fueling the swarthy ones' increased—and increasingly dangerous—criminal activity.

And if they should have slipped him a treasure map on his way out of the prison gates, so be it.

Sadly, that was not to be. Though he didn't walk away from the meet-and-greet empty-handed, having armed himself with a new understanding of their plight.

"I'm in a position where I can actually make some sense and talk about it when I go back to the States, where I [will] talk to different U.N. councils and discuss the matter," he told reporters at the Shimo-la-Tewa facility, which, incidentally, he dubbed the "warmest prison in the world."

If he gives them the Somalis the same good P.R. he brought to the people of Australia recently, well, we're all in luck. Still, good to know the screening process for the U.N. ambassadorships (for drugs and crime, no less) is still as rigorous as ever.