After investigation DFO found misreporting of crab catch and landings and fine $500,000. In Supreme Court at Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador Sea Products was fined $275,000 for misreporting crab landings. Phillip Hillyard, a director with Labrador Sea Products, was fined $50,000 and Barry Hatch, a plant manager with Quinlan Brothers Limited, was fined $50,000, both for misreporting crab.
Fish harvester Randy Noonan was also fined $25,000 for misreporting his crab catch. It is told that the DFO probe resulted in earlier convictions in Provincial Court in St. John’s of four fish harvesters. Dennis McCarthy, Max Whalen, Carl Hopkins, and Maurice Noonan were each fined $25,000. The inspection uncovered evidence indicating misreporting of crab and led to the execution of search warrants on June 14, 2004, on the Quinlan Brothers Limited fish plant and offices in Bay de Verde, Quinlan Brothers head office in St. John’s and Labrador Sea Products in Black Tickle.
Fisheries officers have analyzed over 25,000 documents and found discrepancies between the documents and the amount of crab reported to DFO from 1999 to 2003. The investigation determined Labrador Sea Products was submitting falsified reports in the form of purchase slips that did not include the correct weight, catch value or price. This investigation also unearthed the falsified reports had under reported the amount of snow crab landed at Black Tickle by 105,155 pounds.
A further investigation into landings at the Quinlan Brothers Limited plant in Bay de Verde determined that 218,700 pounds of crab was landed but went unreported in 1999. It was determined that the crab was underreported in fish harvesters’ logbooks and offloaded in such a manner as to avoid monitoring by dockside observers.
