Boat seized in illegal fishing bust to go up for sale

Camperdown fish and chip shop owners Mustafa ?Meric and Burhan ?Tolga ?Meric, and deckhand Wayne Robert McLean, all pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court last week to a range of fisheries offences.

The Merics each received a three-month jail sentence on top of $9000 fines, while McLean was jailed for two months and fined $7500 after he worked as a deckhand on 31 trips.

They have appealed the severity of their sentences.

A fourth man, Rodney Paul Light of Weerite, also pleaded guilty and was fined $6000 and banned from fishing for 12 months after helping out on six trips.

The court heard the men had illegally caught, processed and sold fish including shark caught while on 34 fishing trips between 2016-18?, with the $50,000 in funds used to help pay for the $140,000 fishing boat that has now been forfeited.

In handing down the sentences, Magistrate Franz Holzer said gummy and school shark (sold as flake), mako shark, flathead, snapper, morwong, leatherjacket and gurnard were taken back to the shop, processed, and then laundered and sold as legitimately sourced seafood.

“Your actions were motivated by self-interest and greed. You don’t have to be Einstein to work out what’s going on here,” Magistrate Holzer said.

The Victorian Fishing Authority investigation, called Operation Torpedo, was one of the biggest ever in the VFA’s history, with officers conducting surveillance on the four men as they fished along the south-west coastline.

The charges included illegally taking shark and other fish and selling them through a retail outlet, possessing commercial fishing equipment, failing to retain shark in carcass form, exceeding the daily catch limit for sharks and dealing with the proceeds of crime to the value of $50,000.