Two captains from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) have urged authorities in Australia and New Zealand to help ensure that a toothfish poaching vessel – which escaped from custody in Thailand on 8 September – does not vanish.
Authorities had been holding the vessel in question, Taishan, in Phuket since March, when SSCS alleged it was caught attempting to offload 182 metric tons of Patagonian toothfish as grouper. But since the Thai laws keeping it in port have limited applications when it comes to international fisheries crimes, the vessel – which was restocked with its toothfish catch in March – has seized its first opportunity in five months to flee from its anchoring, and has eluded Thai authorities since last week, Sea Shepherd reported.
Sea Shepherd Captains Peter Hammarstedt and Sid Chakravarty as well as other leaders from Operation Icefish – a Sea Shepherd campaign that uses “innovative direct action tactics to fill a law enforcement void exploited by illegal toothfish operators” – are concerned that Taishan’s cargo will be sold on the black market, and that the ship itself will return to Antarctica.
“An Interpol-listed vessel has slipped through the clutches of the Thailand Authorities and is on the loose. The escape of the Taishan from the waters of Thailand clearly proves the resilience of the toothfish poaching industry and its willingness to defy national and international law enforcement agencies. With the catch of the sister vessels, the Yongding and the Songhua, assimilated into the legal markets, unless this Kunlun is found and arrested again, we expect another 182 tons of toothfish being traded the same way,” said Chakravarty in a prepared statement.
Taishan, which formerly went by the name Kunlun, is one of six vessels targeted by the Operation Icefish campaign; it has also been Purple-listed by Interpol. According to Sea Shepherd, the vessel has links to known Spanish crime syndicate Vidal Armadores. What’s more, its two sister vessels, Yongding and the Songhua, have seemingly “disappeared without a trace,” said Sea Shepherd, an indication that “enough loopholes exist for the illegal vessels to continue to operate once they are no longer under the surveillance of authorities.”
