News / Final black fish fines
FOUR north east pelagic skippers were fined a total of £155,000 at the Edinburgh High Court for illegally landing herring and mackerel at Lerwick’s Shetland Catch and Alexander Buchan Ltd in Peterhead.
The fines bring to an end the long running investigation and prosecution of skippers and factories in the biggest black fish scam Scotland has ever seen.
At an earlier hearing on 27 November the four skippers were subject to confiscation orders totaling £721,562 for the landings between 2002 and 2005.
Also on Wednesday the Fresh Catch factory in Peterhead was fined £160,000 for assisting skippers making undeclared landings.
The factory had received confiscation orders of £500,000 at the 27 November hearing.
Andrew Tait, aged 51, skipper of Chris Andra, Taits and Conquest was fined £40,000 and had a £210,700 confiscation order.
William Tait, aged 50, skipper of Conquest, Taits and Challenge, was fined £35,000 and had £140,030 confiscated.
Robert Tait, aged 46, skipper of Taits, Chris Andra and Conquest, was fined £40,000 and had £179,757 confiscated.
Peter Tait, aged 45, skipper of Taits, Chris Andra and Challenge, was fined £40,000 and had £191,075 confiscated.
These cases conclude Operation Trawler, the huge investigation that saw 17 skippers fined for landing black fish at Shetland Catch in an elaborate fraud that involved three factories and several pelagic fishing boats.
The pelagic industry has since cleaned up its act and until this year had won accreditation for its sustainability from the Marine Stewardship Council, only lost after Iceland and Faroe increased their quotas unilaterally.
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