Keep your claws in place: how poachers' prey gets into restaurants
In the Sakhalin region, the police stopped the activities of an organized group that extracted seafood delicacies with the help of professional diving equipment and modern equipment. More than 2.2 thousand scallops and two Kamchatka crabs were seized. Izvestia found out how the illegal business of trapping rare biological resources is organized and how poachers bypass the control system.
Operation Ecology
In the Aniva Bay near the village of Taranai, detectives from the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Sakhalin Region detained five men aged 36 to 46 for poaching as part of the Ecology preventive measure. According to police, a 45-year-old resident of the Korsakovsky district, along with friends, fished for scallops and Kamchatka crab without permits.
2,258 scallops and two Kamchatka crabs were seized from the detainees. The total damage exceeded 1.5 million rubles. Two boats, an underwater scooter, diving equipment, a car and walkie-talkies were also seized. A criminal case has been opened under Part 3 of Article 256 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
The underground workshop in Dolgoprudny
Sakhalin poachers are only part of the illegal delicatessen market. Poaching is directly related to the clandestine processing of seafood, and such clandestine factories are located throughout Russia. The closer to the place of sale, the more profitable the business is. At the end of July, employees of the GUEBiPK of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB border guard service stopped the activities of an underground seafood processing workshop in the city of Dolgoprudny, Moscow region. Operatives seized more than 900 kg of Kamchatka crab without special labeling. The damage was estimated at more than 21 million rubles.
"The main violation was the absence of special labeling on products provided for by law. Such labeling is mandatory for tracking the legality of fishing," the Interior Ministry's press service explained.
According to the agency, illegal crab has already begun to arrive in restaurants and cafes. A criminal case has been opened under Part 4 of Article 171.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (illegal trafficking of goods subject to labeling). The suspect was given a preventive measure in the form of a written undertaking not to leave.
A year earlier, employees of the border department of the Federal Security Service of Russia for the Western Arctic region identified a similar production in the village of Vidyaevo near Murmansk. 62 briquettes with crab meat weighing more than 210 kg, as well as 125 sets of claws were found. The damage is estimated at 4.5 million rubles. The organizers were brought to administrative responsibility under Part 2 of Article 8.17 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation (violation of the rules and requirements governing fishing in inland waters).
Aquarium fish instead of crab
The shadow market solves the problem of legalizing delicatessen products in different ways. Fake documents are most often used. In this form, frozen semi-finished products are delivered to restaurants and small retail outlets.
But there are also sophisticated ways to "legalize" the crab. One of them was discovered in Primorye in 2024. According to Dmitry Zdanovich, head of the Primorsky Interregional Rosselkhoznadzor Department, the Udmurt enterprise allegedly produced crab, scallop and chum salmon meat from ornamental aquarium fish. Udmurtakvaresurs LLC issued 39 certificates for processing 57.2 thousand ornamental fish. Then, according to the documents, 170 tons of crab meat, scallop fillets and chum salmon were allegedly made from them. The VetIS system lacked data on real raw materials — crabs and scallops.
"Such actions are often used to legalize illegally obtained fish and seafood," Zdanovich said. Thus, poaching catch received fictitious veterinary certificates and hit the shelves as a legal product.
Shadow exports
A significant part of illegally obtained seafood is still exported. Police, border guards and customs officers regularly bring violators to administrative and criminal responsibility. In May of this year, a businessman was detained on Sakhalin, accused of smuggling fish and other biological resources worth about 20 million rubles. According to the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Irina Volk, the entrepreneur has signed a contract with an Asian company for the supply of chum and red caviar.
"The chum he purchased for shipment abroad did not have any accompanying documents," Irina Volk emphasized. The businessman forged veterinary documents and used fictitious labeling: he had already sent 20 tons of fish and 4 tons of caviar, but the second batch was detained at customs.
A similar smuggling attempt was stopped in Primorye, where a Chinese businessman tried to export 12 tons of chum salmon with forged documents. The Customs and the FSB established that the submitted documents did not relate to the shipment. A case has been opened under the article on the smuggling of strategically important resources, which provides for up to 10 years in prison.
Perhaps the most extensive investigation of crab poaching in recent years has been launched in the Khabarovsk Territory, where border guards seized 11 tons of boiled and frozen Kamchatka crab without documents, mined in the Sea of Okhotsk. The damage to biological resources exceeded 300 million rubles.
Demand creates supply
According to experts, owners of cafes and restaurants, buying seafood without documents, create demand, contributing to the destruction of valuable biological resources.
In cases of illegal fishing of Kamchatka crab, given the complexity of organizing such a process, we are usually talking about criminal liability for the extraction of water resources as part of a group of individuals or an organized group, says lawyer Ekaterina Krasnova.
"In general, Part 3 of Article 256 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which is classified as a serious crime, provides for penalties up to imprisonment for up to five years, as well as fines and other measures that the court may impose within the law," she notes. According to the expert, in practice, the amount of damage, the number of episodes, the role of each participant and the presence of mitigating or aggravating circumstances are taken into account. "If proven guilty, the accused risks receiving a real term of imprisonment, especially if it involves an organized group and major damage."
Separately, the lawyer commented on the property consequences for violators of the law.
"The victims in such cases are usually the state," she says. — The amount of damage is calculated according to special taxes of Rosrybolovstvo. The court may recover from the convicts both the amount of damage indicated in the materials and satisfy additional civil claims, if they are justified.
At the same time, not only illegally obtained biological resources are usually subject to confiscation, but also tools and means of committing a crime — boats, equipment, and machinery.
How it should be
Izvestia asked Ekaterina Krasnova to explain how to legally handle such rare seafood as Kamchatka crab, scallop and sea urchin.
— Independent fishing of these species "for yourself" will almost always be illegal, — emphasizes Krasnova. — In rare cases, this is possible only as part of an amateur fishing trip for organized tourist groups. These are the so-called crab safaris organized in the Murmansk region. They are strictly controlled by the security forces, plus there are a number of strict rules and time limits. For example, it is forbidden to catch females of all crab species.
As a rule, only companies or sole proprietors with issued quotas and permits, operating in strict accordance with Fishing Regulations and catch reporting, can legally extract such resources, Krasnova clarifies. For amateur anglers, only those types and volumes that are explicitly specified in the Fishing Rules for a particular pool are allowed.
According to the lawyer, the legality of seafood trafficking is no less important than the legality of fishing.
— To sell such delicacies legally, you need to have documents confirming their legal origin — contracts, invoices, veterinary accompanying documents, data from state information systems, — says Krasnova. — The lack of a transparent "biography" of the product creates the risk of not only administrative fines, but also criminal liability if it is established that the products were poached.
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