Organized crime in the fisheries sector threatens a sustainable ocean economy – Nature.com

To reach a sustainable ocean economy requires balancing the use of the ocean space and its resources with the long-term carrying capacity of the ocean’s ecosystems²³. In line with the three-pillared concept of sustainable development under the Rio process, a sustainable ocean economy should be based on the sustainable use of the ocean from an economic, social and environmental perspective²⁴. Agenda 2030 (adopted at the UN Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September 2015) extends the three dimensions of sustainability to five areas of critical importance (namely, people, prosperity, peace, partnership and planet), which should inform synergized interagency policy interventions that will enable the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Organized crime in the fisheries sector has the potential to severely undermine the efforts of the member states to achieve a range of SDGs, including ‘zero hunger’ (SDG2), ‘decent work and economic growth’ (SDG8), ‘responsible consumption and production’ (SDG12) and ‘life below water’ (SDG14). SDG16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) is a core enabler of the other SDGs²⁵, and the targets of SDG16 have particular resonance in the context of addressing manifestations of organized crime in fisheries²⁵. This is especially important for vulnerable coastal communities with few alternative livelihood options, which renders them susceptible to recruitment by organized criminal networks.

In the sections below, we introduce the most common serious offences that may comprise manifestations of organized crime in the fisheries sector. Illustrative examples are included to highlight how the effects of these crimes may impede the pursuit of a sustainable ocean economy. The cited examples underscore how the various types of crimes interact and how these crimes, when they converge in the real world—particularly in vulnerable communities—may give rise to a range of complex adverse impacts.

Fraud

A large amount of documentation is produced along the fisheries value chain, which generates considerable potential for fraud (that is, the deliberate misrepresentation or concealing of facts for undue benefit)¹⁷. For example, in the Viking case, false vessel registration documents were submitted at port, comprising text that had clearly been cut and pasted from Google translate and using ordinary word-processing software¹⁹. Fishing vessel identity fraud occurs when a vessel’s identity is changed by, for example, not flying the correct flag at port or by physically hiding a vessel’s name to render it anonymous¹⁹. This is associated with ‘flag hopping’, a pattern of re-registering a vessel with new flag states to confound investigations into its illegal operations, as occurred with the Viking¹⁹.

Fraudulent practices harm the reputation of both the legitimate fishing industry and the flag state in question. Furthermore, fraudulent fishing licences deprive coastal states of revenue from the legitimate allocation of fishing rights.

On the basis of fraudulent landing certificates, Trinidad and Tobago is cited as the world’s sixth largest shark fin exporter to Hong Kong²⁶; the fins, in fact, are landed by foreign fishing vessels and merely transit Trinidad and Tobago ports (Republic of Trinidad and Tobago Fisheries Division, personal communication), contributing to the global international illegal trade of shark fins²⁷. In 2014, Trinidad and Tobago was also cited by the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) as trading in Patagonian toothfish, which is in conflict with the region’s fisheries management agreement; however, it was discovered that the trade documents attached to the toothfish exports to Canada that cited Trinidad and Tobago as the port of origin were fraudulent. Fraudulent practices can also give rise to food hygiene risks. At landing, for example, false customs and health documentation can disguise the origin of the catch or the flag of the vessel to avoid paying import tariffs or complying with food hygiene regulations¹⁷.

In some instances, fish and fish products are fraudulently labelled to avoid paying higher customs duty on high-value species, enabling tax crime^28,29 and thereby depriving coastal states of a further stream of economic revenue.

Tax crime and money laundering

The fisheries sector lends itself to tax crime given the ease with which criminals can change a vessel’s country of origin and identity and use fictitious companies as registered vessel owners; this facilitates channelling profits to shell companies in tax havens to avoid paying tax where the profit was generated¹⁹. Tax havens (secrecy jurisdictions) are jurisdictions that lack transparency around the beneficial ownership of bank accounts and companies, making it particularly difficult to identify and prove tax crimes.

Tax crime covers a range of violations of tax and revenue rules that are criminalized in law. The loss of tax revenue through tax crimes in fisheries is estimated to be considerable, which severely undermines the development benefits of the sector and particularly adversely affects states in the Global South²⁸. In Indonesia, an audit of 187 fishing companies by the Tax Directorate General in 2016 identified potential unpaid tax revenues of around IDR235 billion (more than US$16 million). The introduction of law enforcement and policy reform in Indonesia against fisheries crime has contributed to a marked increase in tax revenue from the fisheries sector (US$113 million in 2018)³⁰ (along with an increase in fish stocks^31,32).

Money laundering—the intentional concealing or disguising of the illicit origins of the proceeds of crime¹³—is a type of tax crime and may also be an indication of corruption. Organized criminal networks engage in money laundering in the fisheries sector to integrate the proceeds of crimes committed along the fisheries value chain, or the proceeds from illicit activities outside the sector³³, into the legitimate economy²⁸. Money laundering hampers investigations into organized crime in the fisheries sector and hinders prosecution, including asset recovery, forfeiture of the proceeds of the crime and restitution of illicit gains. In Russia, for instance, the ‘crab mafia’³⁴ has been linked to money laundering (as well as illegal fishing and even assassinations of high-ranking public officials and competitors)³⁵. Many offences committed by organized crime groups in fisheries are ‘predicate offences’ (that is, offences that are a component of a ‘primary’ crime) to money laundering. In Indonesia, fisheries crime is cited as a predicate offence under the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering (Anti Money Laundering) Law³⁶.

Corruption

Although there is substantial anecdotal evidence of corruption in the fishing industry, and it is suspected to be an enabling factor of many other crimes in the sector, there is limited formal literature, and few decided cases, on the subject¹⁵. Corruption is the giving, soliciting or receiving of any undue advantage that is aimed at causing an official to act or refrain from acting³⁷. This can include, for example, political figures or senior government officials using their positions to influence the allocation of fishing licences to companies in which they have a personal business interest (that is, the abuse of function)^17,38,39. An illustrative case that is currently under investigation involves an Icelandic fishing company that allegedly used a bank of a neighbouring country and shell companies in the Pacific to channel bribes to obtain fishing licences in Namibia⁴⁰.

Corruption may take the form of bribes paid to reduce penalties⁴¹, to ignore illegal harvesting of fish^15,17 or to endorse landing data that are clearly false, as occurred in the rock lobster case. Bribery may extend throughout the criminal supply chain, as in a San Diego case in which it was alleged that a US company brought approximately US$17 million worth of sea cucumber from Mexico into the USA by illegally bribing officials along the entire supply chain^17,42,43.

Corruption in the fisheries sector diverts the revenue that is due to states to the shadow economy and severely undermines advancement towards achieving SDG16, in particular the goal to substantially reduce corruption and bribery.

Drug trafficking

Fishing vessels are ideal modes of transport for the movement of drugs given their legitimate presence at sea, the lack of transparency around their movement, identity and ownership, and their ability to tranship and access small harbours. The use of fishing vessels to facilitate drug trafficking (the illicit trade of substances that are subject to drug prohibition laws⁴⁴) is well documented, as fishing vessels can be used as mother ships from which smaller vessels traffic drugs, as support vessels for go-fast boats transiting trafficking routes (for example, in the Caribbean) or as smaller vessels that can traffic drugs directly to and from coastal landing sites and tranship the drugs to mother ships beyond coastal jurisdiction²⁰, for example in the Gulf of Guinea⁴¹.

Fishing vessels may traffic drugs in conjunction with transporting other illicit goods as well as with the smuggling of migrants. In Trinidad and Tobago, for example, artisanal fishing vessels transport drugs and guns from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago as well as illegal migrants and, in Jamaica, fishing canoes transport marijuana to Haiti where it is traded for illegal weapons (the ‘drugs-for-guns’ trade) or cocaine^45,46,47. In the Gulf of Guinea, in 2006, a fishing vessel—the MV Benjamin flying a Ghanaian flag—trafficked about 78 parcels (2,340 kg) of cocaine into Ghana labelled as shrimps⁴⁸.

There is evidence of a close connection between poaching of some high-value species and drug trafficking networks in some parts of the world. In South Africa, for example, poached abalone is bartered with local gangs for the ingredients to manufacture the synthetic drug Mandrax as part of organized criminal networks that illegally export abalone to the East^49,50. In Mexico, an intricate transnational poaching, drug trafficking and human trafficking network controls the supply chain of illegally harvested Totoaba bladders, which are exported to China^51,52,53. In Colombia, organized drug trafficking in the fisheries sector interfaces with a range of inter-related offences including the trafficking of illegal arms, human trafficking, smuggling of fuel and other contraband, large-scale illegal fishing and wildlife trafficking, the response to which requires coordinated operations between the national police, navy and air forces⁵⁴.

The influx of drugs through sea routes, often in conjunction with illicit arms, appears to have a range of negative effects on the coastal communities through which they transit, including a rise in the levels of local violence and associated increased security costs for local businesses (for example, in Trinidad and Tobago⁵⁵), weakened social cohesion and sense of security (for example, in the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), associated with the illegal sea cucumber fishery)⁴² and increased gang-related activity, for example, in Jamaica^47,56,57,58. In South Africa, research indicates that remote coastal communities, such as Buffeljagsbaai, are under siege by organized criminal gangs that illegally harvest abalone on their doorsteps^50,59, with women in the woman-lead households becoming accomplices to organized poaching operations with the result that they are subject to criminal prosecution⁵⁹. Given the central role of communities in the supply chain of organized criminal networks, a community-based approach to complement a law enforcement response is arguably valuable and the community, similarly, has a potential preventative role^59,60,61,62.

Crime in the labour market

Forced labour—that is, work or services exacted from a person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person did not offer himself or herself voluntarily⁶³—is increasingly highlighted as pervasive in the fisheries sector globally. It is often a consequence of human trafficking⁶⁴ or ‘trafficking in persons’ (that is, the procuring of and trading in human beings for the purposes of exploitation)¹³. The problem is documented in a growing body of literature^65,66 and is increasingly exposed in the media. For example, in 2017, employees of a Scottish family-owned company operating a fleet of scallop dredgers were arrested in southern England after nine individuals who had been trafficked were found on one of their vessels⁶⁷. In the port of Puntarenas, Costa Rica, police rescued 36 Asian individuals who had been subjected to labour exploitation on two fishing boats in 2014, arresting four individuals who were charged with human trafficking offences⁶⁸. In the fishing industry, indicators of forced labour include deception, physical and sexual violence, intimidation, retention of identity documents, withholding of wages, debt bondage and abusive working conditions⁶⁴. Recruitment agencies play a central part in facilitating human trafficking for forced labour⁶⁶. In 2016, a foreign network operating out of north Norway in the Barents Sea crab fisheries was identified as making use of forced labour^69,70; allegedly a Seychelles recruitment agency, together with Norwegian port agents, facilitated the smuggling of migrant fishers from Indonesia to Norway.

Criminal networks in fisheries use forced labour to cut costs and boost profits⁷¹. In addition to the implications for human rights, this results in unfair competition with legal operators, which, in turn, can influence legitimate fishing companies to breach domestic crewing regulations in an attempt to remain competitive, such as in the Norwegian snow-crab sector^69,70,72 and in Russia⁷³.

Fisheries offences

Illegal fishing—fishing in violation of fisheries laws and measures—may also be a criminal offence if it is criminalized under the law of the relevant jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions have severe criminal penalties for fisheries offences, such as Norway, in which grave offences attract a prison sentence of up to six years plus asset forfeiture. Illegal fishing is criminalized in many jurisdictions around the world, including Ghana, Indonesia and South Africa^74,75. In practice, regardless of whether or not illegal fishing has been criminalized in a jurisdiction, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a strong risk indicator of fisheries crime^76,77.

The adverse effects of large-scale overfishing are well documented⁷⁸. This includes the severe negative impacts on the state of commercially exploitable fish stocks: 2009 data estimated that 18% of the global catch, valued at US$10–23.5 billion, between 2000 and 2003 was lost to illegal or unreported fishing⁷⁹. The latest figures of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (2015 data) estimate that 59.9% of the world’s commercial fish stocks are now fully fished and a third of the global fish stocks are overexploited⁸⁰. As fish stocks decline, the resource becomes more valuable, attracting increasing involvement of transnational organized crime syndicates²⁰. Successful prosecution of organized networks can have positive effects on the targeted stocks, as illustrated by the rock lobster case, which resulted in the marked recovery of the targeted species (south coast rock lobster)⁸¹.

Large-scale illegal fishing can cause severe economic loss to coastal states: the combined annual economic losses due to illegal fishing to Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea and Sierra Leone, for example, are estimated at US$2.3 billion^48,82. A recent global study⁸³ estimates that between 7.7 and 14.0 million metric tons of unreported fish catches are potentially traded illicitly each year, suggesting that gross revenues of between US$8.9 and US$17.2 billion are annually redirected out of the legitimate market through illicit trade. Asia, Africa and South America account for approximately 85% of total catch losses to likely illicit trade globally. Africa is estimated to experience between US$7.6 and US$13.9 billion and US$1.8 and US$3.3 billion in losses annually in economic and income impacts, respectively, owing to the redirection of catches from legitimate to illicit seafood trade⁸³.

In fishing communities with few alternative livelihood options, low-level poaching may change into, or co-exist alongside, organized criminal activity. In South Africa, this is evident in the context of abalone and west coast rock lobster fishing, where the boundaries between ‘protest poaching’, opportunistic poaching and facilitation of, or involvement in, organized criminal activity are porous and often overlap⁵⁹. The overexploitation of west coast rock lobster⁸⁴, for example, has led to thousands of subsistence fishers being unable to secure sufficient quotas with the result that some have turned to illegal alternative-income-generating activities⁸⁵.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food⁸⁶ has underscored the importance of curtailing illegal fishing to prevent further adverse effects on food security. Fisheries provide an estimated 17% of animal protein consumed worldwide, with the highest per capita consumption in developing small-island states⁸⁰. In the West African region of the Gulf of Guinea, where around 40% of the population resides in coastal areas, fish is the predominant (and sometimes, only) source of animal protein consumed in coastal communities⁸⁷. In Jamaica, where large-scale overfishing has left most reef fish stocks overexploited⁸⁸, the country is almost entirely dependent on imported fish for domestic consumption.

The marine environment and associated ecosystems may also be negatively affected by organized crime in fisheries: piracy and armed robbery at sea in the Gulf of Guinea pose threats to the marine environment because of the risk of oil or chemical spills caused by the use of destructive weapons to attack vessels and the transfer of the targeted vessel’s cargo⁸⁹. In Nigeria, some local fishers struggling to sustain their livelihoods engage in illegal fishing in the vicinity of oil pipeline installations, which risks causing oil leaks and marine pollution⁹⁰. In Mexico, fishers adversely affected by the poorly regulated governmental conservation measures in the Gulf of California have turned to totoaba poaching because of the lack of legitimate alternative livelihoods⁵². The use of gill nets in this illegal activity has brought the vaquita porpoise (caught as bycatch) to the brink of extinction and resulted in severe damage to the large marine ecosystem of the Upper Gulf of California^51,91. Illegal dynamite (‘blast’) fishing, associated with explosives trafficking, off the Tanzanian coast is highly destructive to the affected marine habitat, including coral reefs, and fish stocks, and has broad food security ramifications^92,93.

Smuggling

The fishing industry provides ideal cover for smuggling of otherwise legal goods from one jurisdiction to another in violation of the law (often to avoid customs duties). In Ecuador, for example, artisanal fishers smuggle subsidized Ecuadorian fuel to the neighbouring coast of Colombia, where it is sold at considerable profit⁹⁴ and Trinidad and Tobago fishing vessels have been implicated in the illegal trade of fuel. Ghana is reportedly at risk of losing about GHS1.5 billion (US$300 million) to the smuggling of fuel, which is trafficked by fishing vessels and canoes⁹⁵. Fuel is often smuggled alongside illicit goods, such as drugs, illegal weapons and illegally harvested fish, as well as people⁹⁴.

The use of fishing vessels to smuggle migrants (that is, to facilitate or assist migrants to enter a country illegally for financial or material benefit¹³) is alleged to be prevalent, but is less well documented formally. The public media reports that artisanal fishing vessels are the mode of transport to traffic migrant women from South America to Trinidad and Tobago, where some are forced into prostitution and others are transported to the USA⁹⁶. There are also indications that fishing vessels are linked to migrant smuggling in the Mediterranean Sea^20,97,98,99, Australia¹⁰⁰ and Thailand¹⁰¹.

Security threats at sea

Various offences that occur at sea present a threat to peace and security; this can include offences falling within the ambit of organized crime in fisheries. ‘Fisheries conflicts’—which may arise from a combination of factors, including illegal fishing (along with climate change and food security concerns)—are recognized as a potential threat to maritime security and livelihoods and there is a growing body of literature on the topic^{90,102,103,104}. In the Gulf of Guinea, numerous organized criminal activities at sea threaten peace and security, including piracy and armed robbery, kidnapping for ransom, fuel and gas robbery and smuggling, drugs and arms trafficking and illegal fishing². This adversely affects the economic bases of the region’s states through, for example, increased insurance premiums for cargo vessels, which hinders the movement of goods and services and results in lost income for businesses and governments and an increase in the price of goods and services^105,106. In Nigeria, for example, piracy and armed robbery at sea is associated with a diminished contribution from the domestic fishing sector to the gross domestic product (GDP) as fewer licensed fee-paying vessels are willing to go to sea^90,107. Furthermore, coastal fishers who fear putting out to sea in Nigeria due to violent attacks from illegal fishing vessels have been recruited by organized criminal networks engaging in armed robbery at sea and oil smuggling, and fishmongers—who are predominantly women—have in some instances turned to prostitution to make ends meet^90,108.

A recent Security Council Resolution expressed concern over the links between international terrorism and organized crime, including transnational organized crime at sea¹⁰⁹. The Security Council has further highlighted the complex relationship between large-scale illegal fishing and the international crime of piracy (as defined in the UN International Law of the Sea)¹¹⁰, in Somali waters in the Indian Ocean^111,112,113; a similar link has been argued in the case of Southeast Asia¹¹⁴.

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