Illegal Fish Landings

[Keedle]

[Guest posiedon]

o

dddjob

Anybody know why the Irish vesels (sic) who landed a huge proportion of this black fish at the catch

How do you know that? Citations needed.

 

weren't persecuted

Don't you mean prosecuted?

[PJ of Hildisvik]

This debacle is still being investigated, i would expect more prosecutions in the future.

 

Shetland catch will find out their fate in March i believe.

[odddjob]

Thanks for pointing out the typo. Will get the sticky keyboard cleaned, cheers.

 

Persecuted or prosecuted? Well both apply imho.

 

I can well remember the pubs full o irish pelagic crews during this period. Maybe they were the only ones landing legally???? Dunna think the [*** mod edit - if you're going to name boats and/or you have evidence, speak to the police ***] were landing all their fish at fresh catch for the good of their health either. But then again we can all just swallow up what the crown tells us. Maybe the shetland guys were the only ones at it after all! What do you think?

[exciseman]

At Shetland Catch in Lerwick, one of Europe's largest fish processors, the company installed a duplicate conveyor belt when its new factory was built, fitting a secret weight-reading device in the loft and a computer in an engineer's workshop "a considerable distance" from the factory floor.

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/24/fishing-skippers-fined-illegal-catches

 

Did Shetland Islands Council Economic Development Unit give Shetland Catch a grant to build their new factory?

If so did someone in the SIC know what was going on?

Obviously the criminal plan was hatched when the factory was constructed.

If a grant was paid then in view of the crimes committed by the recipients of the grant, should not the SIC try to recover their money that was used to set up the crime?

[Guest posiedon]

odddjob

Maybe the shetland (sic) guys were the only ones at it after all! What do you think?

The Shetland guys are the ones that got caught and were prosecuted, I can't comment on your assumption that "other folk were at it but didn't get caught" for obvious reasons.

[odddjob]

Perhaps not an assumption. But let's leave it at that. Shetland Catch still no gone thru. Perhaps there will be mare to say after that! Let's see whut comes oot. Lot more to this than meets the eye tho. An I am no that fussed aboot shetland haein a capital letter, a bit like god, so that wisna a typo.

[EM]

If so did someone in the SIC know what was going on?

Of course SIC knew. Everyone and their dog knew about the black fish, though not the specific details. Even I knew, and I am not particularly at the heart of fishing gossip.

[crofter]

o

 

Should that not be "oh"?

 

And since it is the first word of your post, should it not be "Oh"?

[Incongruous Eel]

aint they're another thread for that

[Incongruous Eel]

BOT Dyathink they'll still have roofs after paying such fines

[Russabell]

This was no victimless crime – the losers were the taxpayer and the environment.

 

The taxman got his 40% cut.

[crofter]

aint they're another thread for that

 

yes, sorry, they am indeed.

[Muppet]

This was no victimless crime – the losers were the taxpayer and the environment.

 

If you read the reports, the reason they were found out was that they were paying tax on the full value of the catch landed including the undeclared landings.

[Ghostrider]

This was no victimless crime – the losers were the taxpayer and the environment.

 

How? If the taxpayer is showing a loss its only because the Government chose to pursue their investigations and subsequent prosecutions. What H.M's lackeys insisted they're taking as their pound of flesh has to cover a chunk at least of the waste of taxpayer's money anyway. As regards the enviornment, it was not a steady decline in the available affected stock that alerted the powers that be to a potential "problem", as might have been expected *if* the quota amounts were worth the paper they're written on. In fact there's never been any suggestion that the relevant species stocks have been anything but "healthy" both during and after these "illegal activities" were occuring. Kinda makes a mockery of there being a "need" for such regulation, does it not? In fact the irony of it all is, regardless of "illegal" landings, come now, there would be no difference in the amount of stock on the grounds. By landing "illegal" fish, they depressed the price as they were flooding the market, but it did the stocks no harm longer term harm, and prices rose again once supplies were arguably un-necessarily strangled (if that's not price fixing on the part of bureaucrats, I dunno what is). Had no "illegal" landings been made, stocks would have grown even larger, leading to increased quotas which would then have depressed the price before stocks were trimmed back again.

 

Seems to me the only "crime" committed by anyone here is having signed up to abide by certain "rules", then failing to do so,and being caught out doing so. Hardly a capital offence, they're not the first business people to bend the rules and cook the books by a long shot, and almost certainly won't be the last. Whoohooo....