Officials have seized illegally caught herring & mackerel and arrested six skippers for violating the current fishing quotas. The six Shetland skippers face unlimited fines and multi-million pound confiscation orders after admitting breaching fishing quotas. They have illegally landed £15m worth of herring and mackerel to cheat strict quotas designed to conserve fish stocks.
In a court they have admitted that they made false declarations about the true size of their catch after nearly 200 voyages between January 2002 and March 2005, deliberately breaching their own annual fishing quotas. Their conviction followed a long-running investigation by police and the Scottish fisheries protection agency which also led to guilty pleas from a Lerwick-based fish wholesalers Shetland Catch Ltd for supplying false reports about the size of the landings.
Scott Pattison, director of operations with Scotland’s prosecution authority, the Crown Office, said that the consequences of overfishing on this scale are far-reaching and the impact on fish stocks and the marine environment is potentially devastating. He added that the legislation is to protect the marine environment for the good of all and to safeguard the fishing industry.
