Five Libyan government officials have been arrested for their alleged role in deliberately mismanaging the nation’s tuna quota allocation system.
The allegations come as the Libyan government has intensified its probe into corruption in the management of the country's bluefin tuna quota allocations between 2018 and 2025.
A statement from the Libyan Attorney General’s (AG) Office alleges that the North African nation’s undersecretary and director of administrative affairs at the Ministry of Marine Resources, the government representative to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), and two members of the government committee that distributes fishing quotas deliberately empowered one company to monopolize the allocation process and prioritized its interest over the public’s and the rights of fishermen.
“The investigation revealed irregularities stemming from a deviation in the quota allocation framework – assigned to the State of Libya – away from established fisheries management rules and the principles of fisheries governance,” the statement said. “The members of the allocation framework deliberately orchestrated a scheme to grant a single company exclusive access to the catch.”
Despite previous efforts to step up tuna fishing regulations and align the sector with international best practices and standards, the suspects are further accused of colluding to provide the ICCAT “with data on participating fishing units from past seasons without adhering to selection rules that ensure optimal exploitation of fish stocks and mismanaging procedures to secure illicit gains.”
This conduct, the AG’s statement said, undermines fairness in the fishing quota allocation process and violates the nation’s principle of equitable distribution of Libya's tuna resources.
The accused are expected to be arraigned once the investigations on alleged quota management violations are complete. Names of both the company and the suspects were not provided.
The probe comes shortly after the Libyan government began a wholesale reassessment of the structure of its domestic fisheries sector, which resulted in suspending exports and re-exports of all forms of seafood for at least 90 days.
