A new report just released in Britain by a hitherto obscure group of activists claims that pirate fish have been seizing fishing vessels and forcing themselves onto the market in Britain to be eaten. It's pirate fish fish laundering on a grand scale.
Illegal "pirate" fish is ending up on Britain's dinner plates as part of a sophisticated laundering operation which threatens the future of global stocks, a report claims.
The fish is caught off West Africa then mixed up with legal catch before entering the European marketplace through "soft" ports of convenience, such as Las Palmas on Gran Canaria……
…….The process of "laundering" the fish into the EU marketplace makes tracing IUU fish "virtually impossible", the EJF acknowledges.
It says it witnessed vessels off Guinea fishing without licences, and "transshipping", whereby fishing boats transfer their catch at sea, unusually under the cover of night, to specialised transport vessels, or "reefers", to bypass regulations.
Vessels dodge identification by "flag-hopping", using flags of convenience from Panama, Belize, even land-locked Mongolia, it said, changing name and flag several times in a season.
At the Spanish port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, "an infamous port of convenience" with just five port inspectors, illegal fishing fleets can unload their catch "with little or no scrutiny as to its origin or legality prior to being laundered into the EU marketplace."
We knew piracy was on the rise again, but we never expected to hear about a modern day Blackfin the pirate.
