Seventeen Scottish skippers and one processing plant have been fined millions of pounds this week for illegal pelagic fish landings which took place between 2002 and 2005.
The media has called this “the UK’s biggest fraud involving illegal catches of fish” – involving three processing firms – one in Shetland, two in Peterhead.
The fishermen were fined a reported total of £2.9m collectively in Glasgow this week. Fish processing plant Alexander Buchan Ltd of Peterhead, which no longer operates, was also reportedly fined £240,000.
The other two fish processing plants involved – Peterhead’s Fresh Catch and Lerwick’s Shetland Catch have yet to be sentenced.
All plants have pleaded guilty though to landing illegal fish totalling a reported £62.8 million during 2002-2005.
Over the time period, thousands of tonnes of fish, exceeding European quotas, were reportedly caught illegally and processed through the plants.
The Shetland Catch factory was raided back in 2005 after an investigation into the companies’ accounts. During the raid, logbooks were found to be falsified and weighing scales rigged to underestimate catch quotas.
Scottish Fisheries Secretary, Richard Lochhead, has called the offence a “stark and shameful reminder of the culture that existed in some areas of the fishing industry in past years.” He has insisted that the culture is much improved today.
The prosecutions this week follow an investigation spanning several years by Marine Scotland called ‘Operation Trawler’.
