22 held over ‘permit for lease’ scheme
Seven Vietnamese among those busted in joint op against illegal fishing
PUTRAJAYA: Foreign fishing vessel owners have been paying up to RM100,000 for each permit issued to local fishermen to trawl in Malaysian waters.
They were also willing to pay huge sums as “protection money” to unscrupulous enforcement personnel to allow them to encroach into exclusive economic zones.
The covert activities of these foreigners, who were mostly Vietnamese, and the errant enforcement authorities were uncovered after months of joint surveillance by the Malaysian AntiCorruption Commission (MACC) and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA).
Codenamed Ops Armada, the operation led to the arrest of 22 people in a major swoop in Terengganu, Pahang, Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan on Sunday.
Those arrested were five MMEA personnel, a staff from the Fisheries Department in Labuan, nine local middlemen and fishing vessel owners, and seven Vietnamese, including two women.
One of the two Vietnamese women, a 41yearold with a Datuk title, is allegedly the syndicate leader. They have all been remanded.
MACC chief commissioner Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad said surveil lance had been conducted since the beginning of this year.
“We launched Ops Armada because we suspected elements of corruption and power abuse that led to incidents of encroachment by foreign fishing vessels, particularly from Vietnam.
“After months of monitoring and shared intelligence, we uncovered their modus operandi and began to plan the arrests,” Dzulkifli told a press conference yesterday.
Intelligence uncovered three methods used by the foreigners – they encroached into Malaysian waters to fish, cloned their boats with Malaysian registration numbers and loaned fishing permits from local fishermen.
“The third method is the one we viewed most seriously, where local fishermen abuse their permits by leasing them to foreigners for a fee.
“What they are doing is illegal and they have abused the privilege given to them,” he added.
Investigations also revealed that Vietnamese vessel owners would pay MMEA officers so they could fish “freely and without disturbance”.
Authorities seized RM1.9mil during the swoop and 44 accounts containing some RM2mil had been frozen.
MMEA directorgeneral Datuk Seri Zulkifli Abu Bakar said the illegal activities were a threat to national security and would affect fishermen’s income.
He said losses to the nation were quite huge, with Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi putting the figure at between RM3bil and RM6bil a year.
“That is why we need to stop the exploitation. This operation has successfully stopped enforcement personnel from exploiting the country’s fishing resources.
“This will also serve as a deterrent to others as we will not hesitate to act against them,” Zulkifli said.