January 15, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The charging document released by NOAA revoking Carlos Rafael’s and Associated entities fishing permits contained a number of new allegations that were not part of the criminal trial.
One count was against sector IX, which applied to the entire sector, including Rafael’s vessels, was filing a false report of the volume of yellowtail flounder landed in the sector in 2011. Through a special agreement, the statute of limitations on this alleged misreporting was waived by Rafael.
NOAA is seeking a $140,000 fine from all members of sector IX for this offense.
The other new charges all involve scallops during the 2013 fishing year. 12 of the counts are of falsely reporting the volume of scallops landed.
For example, on January 15, the vessel F/V Ilha Brava submitted a ‘broken trip’ report to NOAA, claiming the vessel only harvested 7,886 lbs of scallops on its trip. In fact, the vessel landed 17,200 lbs.
The other eleven counts are similar. Some include broken trip reports that were false. Others include lying about the volume of scallops taken from a limited access area.
For example, September 13-18, the vessel F/V Acores reported it only caught 1851 lbs of scallops in a limited access area trip, when in fact it had caught 12,700 lbs.
Two counts involved vessels failing to transmit the position via the vessel monitoring system as required.
NOAA says that under Magnuson:
(1) In any case in which (A) a vessel has been used in the commission of an act prohibited under section 1857 of this title, (B) the owner or operator of a vessel or any other person who has been issued or has applied for a permit under this chapter has acted in violation of section 1857 of this title… the Secretary may—
(i) revoke any permit issued with respect to such vessel or person, with or without prejudice to the issuance of subsequent permits…[or]
(iii) deny such permit.
This is the authority they are using to revoke 38 permits, including two scallop permits which were not part of the original criminal complaint.
The full charging document can be read here.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.