Romulan pirates?

I am absolutely unqualified to discuss anything Star Trek-related and am thus hesitant to even write about this, but I would like to briefly comment on the pirate-Romulan connection as described by Clifton Collins Jr. in an interview with E! Online:

Collins said his and Bana's Romulan look could have been somewhat inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean. “We’re space pirates,” Collins explained. “Think of Johnny Depp as a Romulan."

Having seen (and thoroughly enjoyed) the movie, I'm pretty sure the comparison with Captain Jack Sparrow only works at the most superficial (read, tattooed) level, since the film's depiction of the Romulans left little doubt that they were the bad guys. In contemporary narrative, pirates - especially the Johnny Depp kind - tend to be charming rule-breakers whose life on the margins of society is seen as bold repudiation of the oppressive cultural or governmental status quo. The film's Captain Kirk (at least back in Iowa) actually fulfilled that particular archetype better than Captain Nero did.

Nor is a comparison with the unromanticized version of "real" piracy particularly apt. It might be tempting to compare the destruction of the Romulans' planet with the overfishing and environmental degradation in the Gulf of Aden, but while the Somali pirates are narrated as having been driven to economic desperation, Nero's motive is purely revenge. Some Somali pirates, like Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, have demonstrated their willingness to surrender in exchange for foreign help and a group of 200 pirates renounced piracy in exchange for amnesty ; Nero fiddled while the Narada burned.

A quick Google search on the subject reveals that this is not the first comparison between Romulans and pirates in the Star Trek universe, however. In particular, the prohibition and smuggling of Romulan ale (I Wikipedia-ed this) provides a nice comparison with Carribbean pirates and their rum.