Biggest fishing scam in Scots history: ‘Greedy and shameful’ fishermen fined £720 thousand after stealing £47.5 million of fish
By Lewis Smith, fish2fork news
24 February 2012 Seventeen captains of fishing boats involved in a £47.5million ‘black fish’ scam have been fined £720,000 and told they brought shame on the industry. The skippers had landed mackerel and herring in Lerwick and made false declarations about the quantities so that they could avoid reaching their quota levels and carry on fishing. The Judge, Lord Turnbull, at the High Court in Glasgow, described their actions as motivated by greed and said the scam had been “cynical and sophisticated”. […] “The motivation was purely financial. Those who were already making a good living saw this as a way more income could be generated and were prepared to participate in deliberate lies and falsehoods.” A fish processing factory, Alexander Buchan Ltd, was fined £240,000 for helping the skippers make false declarations. […] Lindsey Miller, Head of the Serious and Organised Crime Division, said after the hearing: “Organised crime takes many forms. These individuals may not have been involved in drug dealing or prostitution but let us make no mistake that they were involved in significant and serious organised criminality. “The legislation is there to protect the marine environment for the good of all and to safeguard the future of the fishing industry. These men disregarded it for their own financial gain.” Detective Superintendent Gordon Gibson of Grampian Police, led the police investigation, and said: “The scale of crime committed by these individuals was at a level rarely seen before. “It was apparent during our investigations that these individuals totally disregarded any legislation to prevent this occurring and as can be seen from the landings made, they amassed huge sums of money through their own greed.” The seventeen skippers had admitted the illegal landings and at a hearing in December they were ordered to pay back almost £3 million in confiscation orders. The 17 vessel skippers, the amounts of the confiscation orders, and the fines are:
- Hamish Slater, 53, Master of Enterprise, confiscation order £425,900, fined £80,000
- Robert Polson, 48, Master of Serene, confiscation order £371,300, fined £70,000
Victor Buschini, 51, Master of Enterprise, confiscation order £341,000, fined £70,000- Alexander Masson, 66, Master of Kings Cross, confiscation order £283,000, fined £50,000
- John Irvine, 68, Master of Zephyr, confiscation order £236,000, fined £80,000
- William Andrew Williamson, 65, Master of Research W, confiscation order £213,000, fined £45,000
- Laurence Anderson Irvine, 66, Master of Antares, confiscation order £210,700, fined £80,000
- Alexander Wiseman, 60, Master of Kings Cross, confiscation order £196,000, fined £50,000
- David Hutchison, 66, Master of Charisma, confiscation order £140,900, fined £40,000
- Thomas Eunson, 56, Master of the Serene, confiscation order, £140,500, fined £40,000
- Allister Irvine, 63, Master of the Zephyr, confiscation order, £120,600, fined £35,000
- Gary Williamson, 52, Master of the Research W, confiscation order £118,500, fined £35,000
- George Andrew Henry, 60, Master of the Adenia, confiscation order £51,300, fined £12,000
- John William Stewart, 57, Master of the Antarctic, confiscation order £41,300, fined £15,000
- George Anderson, 56, Master of the Adenia, confiscation order £40,700, fined £12,000
- Colin Andrew Leask, 39, Master of the Antarctic II, confiscation order £12,000, fined £3,000
- Allen Anderson, 55, Master of the Serene, confiscation order £2,700, fined £3,000
Alexander Buchan Limited, had a £165,000 confiscation order on December 16 and has now been fined £240,000.
‘Greedy and shameful’ fishermen condemned for £47.5 million black fish scam
By Willie
24 February 2012 Organised crime seems to pay quite handsomely, especially if you manage to be part of a profession that seems to be beyond reproach. That can surely be the only conclusion to draw from the group of 17 fishermen who were fined a mere £720 thousand in court today for an overfishing scam that effectively stole £63 MILLION of fish from our seas. The case has been dragging on for many years, and uncovered a huge network designed to bypass the official systems to land illegal fish in vast quantities. This involved skippers on boats, processing factories on land, doctored weighing machines, and even secret pipes to surreptitiously siphon off the illicit fish. The Judge described the whole operation as ‘cynical and sophisticated’, yet the sentence seems to make a mockery of the sheer scale of the crime. The fish involved were mackerel and herring, caught by large boats in the pelagic fishing sector. These boats are the biggest and most lucrative in the UK’s fishing fleet. Ironically it is this same fishery that provides ‘sustainable’ MSC mackerel and is now embroiled in a bitter dispute with their North Atlantic neighbours over access to the fish. This has happened before, in another fishery, at the other end of the UK. In 2009 the Stevenson family, of Newlyn, found guilty of another widespread scam to land illegal fish from their beam trawling fleet, were fined a nominal fee of £1 for each offence – despite profiting by over £4million from the fish illegally landed. Today’s verdict is a slap in the face to all of us. Because if anyone ‘owns’ the fish in the sea – then we all do. And this was stolen from us. But most disgusting of all is that the vast amounts of overfishing by these boats, and the puny fines received, are happening at the same time as the other end of our fishing industry – the small-scale, inshore, low-impact vessels are struggling to make ends meet. It’s no exaggeration to say that some of the local fishermen around our coasts are in danger of going to the wall over access to just a few boxes worth of quota for these fish. It’s high time we realised there is not one homogenous ‘fishing industry’, and started supporting the progressive, low-impact end of the scale. These guys are the heart and soul of coastal communities, and yet are not being represented by a system which favours the better-organised, bigger boats. At the moment it seems like the bigger you are, the softer you fall.
Scandalous sentences for Scottish skippers
By Charlie Gall
20 February 2012 SETTING foot on the island of Whalsay is something like being teleported to a real-life Land of the Giants. Rising out of the water like monsters from the deep are a 21st-century phenomenon, huge fishing boats that are among the largest in Europe. The gigantic trawlers, not far off the length of a football pitch, tower above other fishing boats and pleasure craft. But the pride of Shetland’s fishing fleet became embroiled in a scheme that made another island saga – the Whisky Galore plunder of 50,000 cases from the shipwrecked SS Politician – seem like small beer. Seventeen skippers, most of them from Whalsay, and a processing firm netted £47.5million in the biggest fishing scam in Scots history. The colossal “black fish” haul – in which skippers under-reported their catches of mackerel and herring to breach EU quotas – dwarfed sums stolen in many of Britain’s most notorious robberies. So it is little wonder that Whalsay, a tiny isle off the north-east tip of the Shetland mainland, quickly earned the nickname “Millionaires Island” with a fleet of trawlers capable of hauling seven-figure fortunes from the sea. […] The main industry of the island has always been fishing and the harbour at Symbister had to be improved to make room for the larger pelagic – deep ocean – trawlers. Last week, three of the giants – the Antares, Charisma, and Zephyr – around £50 million worth of fishing vessels – were tied up, standing idle in the port. Amazingly, it’s a familiar sight. The boats are so big they are capable of scooping up their entire annual quota of mackerel and herring in just a handful of trips to sea. […]
A slap on the wrist when you do the numbers. They should have their trawlers confiscated, their licenses revoked, and jail time (in addition to the fines). This will only teach those who will do these things that crime really does pay.