The Dutch fishery is ‘a fairly closed world in which fraudsters seem to feel little inconvenienced’. The sector continues to struggle with a ‘deep-rooted corporate culture’ in which ‘some individuals and companies are persistently breaking the rules’.
The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), the fisheries supervisor, draws this hard conclusion in a report that the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Fisheries (LNV) submitted to the House of Representatives earlier this month. sent.
Signs of fraud among Dutch fishermen have been around since 2004 familiar. The NVWA has been unable to take effective action against the “persistent and recurring signals” of fraud in the sector for years, the regulator itself writes in the report. The NVWA calls on the cabinet to come up with a ‘new impulse’ for tackling fraud in the fish chain.
For example, the chance of administrative and criminal prosecution should be greater, illegally obtained profits should be taken more often and the government should take away fishing licenses or subsidies more quickly. According to the NVWA, the sector itself must also do more to prevent fraud.
The cabinet will provide a response to the NVWA’s findings at the beginning of October. Until then, the Ministry of LNV cannot respond to it, a spokesperson said.
On Monday, the European Court of Auditors also published a report showing that most European countries are doing too little to prevent illegal fishing. The European Commission tapped the Netherlands on the fingersbecause it did too little to prevent fraud in the weighing of fish catches.
Criminal investigations
In the past five years, the NVWA handed out 280 fines to Dutch fishermen, including for illegally catching fish species subject to a quota. In 34 cases, a signal of possible fraud led to a criminal investigation by the judicial authorities. But these figures “show only the lower limit,” warns the NVWA: the real extent of the fish fraud is difficult to determine “because these activities are kept out of the government’s view as much as possible.”
Companies are ‘systematically and in several ways’ breaking the legislation to prevent overfishing
According to the regulator, Dutch fishermen are guilty of all kinds of fraud. For example, some of the companies are violating ‘systematically and on several levels’ the legislation aimed at preventing overfishing, for example by not registering part of the catch. According to the NVWA, this is “frequently the case.” Fish caught in excess of the permitted amount is often marketed as black: “Continuing signals indicate that shipping companies, sorting companies, (intermediaries) traders and transporters in varying compositions are working together to get rid of black fish,” writes the regulator.
Fishermen also cheat with the engine power of their boat. By using motors with more power than allowed, they can use larger nets and thus catch more. According to the NVWA, checks on engine power are easy to circumvent. Also, some fishermen use nets that are smaller than allowed, resulting in an unnecessarily large bycatch of young, undersized fish. According to the NVWA, the companies process some of this illegally in fish products that end up with the consumer.
Traders also sometimes add illegal additives to the fish. For example, protein and phosphate can increase the weight of plaice fillet, making it more profitable. Tuna gets a fresh red color by adding carbon monoxide or plant extracts.
According to the NVWA, the many cheating among Dutch fishermen is because the sector is under great pressure. Many companies are experiencing financial difficulties due to, among other things, the ban on pulse fishing, Brexit and the corona pandemic. According to the NVWA, the financial gain from fraud can amount to half a million euros per company per year. Some of the fishermen are even susceptible to organized crime and are involved in drug smuggling.
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