In Sweden’s largest ever poaching case, a Swedish court has found nine fishermen guilty of illegally fishing more than 100 tonnes of cod in the country’s waters. In a statement the Vargerg district court said that the crime involves incorrect book-keeping of catches in the spring of 2005 in the Kattegat strait.
The court slapped huge fine to all fishermen to pay between 3,740 and 70,000 kronor and one of them, who was also found guilty of other crimes, was sentenced to five months in prison. Overall the case has charged 16 fishermen of pulling in 109 tonnes of cod and passing it off as unquotaed pollack in what appeared to be a ploy to circumvent strict EU quotas limiting cod fishing.
However, it is found that those fishermen had not surpassed the permitted quota for 2005 and the court decided to drop charges against seven fishermen who had not been captains on their ships at the time. The court also dropped the case against a purchaser of fish who had been accused of facilitating the scam, which according to the charges allowed the fishermen to rake in an additional 1.8 million kronor (183,000 euros, 240,000 dollars).
The Swedish Board of Fisheries considered this case a serious crime since the illegal fishing puts further pressure on dwindling cod stocks in the Kattegat strait.
