February 21, 2019 — A fight between Russia’s crab fishing sector at the Russian government has escalated after two damaging reports aired on national television and the government initiated a public investigation into crab magnate Oleg Khan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed reallocating 50 percent of Russia’s crab quota via an auction system. The proposal has generated an uproar in Russia’s seafood industry, with some industry representatives calling the proposal potentially disastrous.
In December, separate reports by television stations Russia and NTV aired investigative reports alleging serious issues related to illegal, underreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Russia’s crab fisheries. Both stations editorialized that only a shift to auctions would stifle the illegal activity that they said had become rampant in the industry.
In its report, NTV, a private channel owned by Gazprom Media holding, the media body of the mainly state-owned conglomerate Gazprom, accused the Russian crab industry of fishing beyond its quotas, and of illegally exporting the illegally-caught crab to South Korea and Japan. They criticized authorities in South Korean and Japanese ports for not doing their best to prevent illegal import of Russian crab, alleging they often turn a blind eye on improperly filed papers.