Hunting A Shark Fleet

After receiving a tip-off regarding illegal fishing boats in East Timor, Sea Shepherd departed on a mission to hunt down the fleet

- Gary Stokes

At ADEX Singapore 2017, I was handed some drone footage that showed a trans-shipment of sharks from 15 industrial fishing boats just 200 metres offshore in East Timor. At the same time, I was also given a message that the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr Jose Ramos Horta, the former Prime Minister/President of East Timor, was asking if Sea Shepherd could help in the same matter. After reviewing the footage, we began an investigation into the Hong Long fleet that was licenced to fish in East Timor. We tracked and monitored the mothership, which was first going to China to unload then onwards across the Pacific near the Galápagos. Upon seeing the Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999 meeting with several fishing boats, I notified our CEO, Captain Alex Cornellisen, who used to head our operations in Galápagos. Two days later, the ship was arrested inside the Galápagos National Park with 300 tons of shark on-board. The crew were placed in prison and the ship was confiscated.

Our investigation into the 15 vessels operating in East Timor was uncovering a lot of strange anonomlies. The fleet was claimed to be owned by Pingtan Marine Enterprises (PME) listed on the US Nasdaq, yet all signs pointed to them being owned by Hong Long Fisheries based in Fuzhou, China. The case became even more interesting when we discovered that the husband ran one company and the wife ran the other company, and “assets” were switched regularly between them. Also, the fact that the Pingtan fleet had made the news when they were kicked out of Indonesia by Fisheries Minister Ms Susi Pudjiastuti for illegal fishing made them a target of interest.