The estimated global catch in 2018 (the latest year for which we have data) was 107 million tons, nearly twice what it was in the late 1960s. Seafood consumption shot up 30 percent from 35 pounds per person in 1998 to 45 pounds per person in 2018, according to the United Nations. And because the United States is one of the largest seafood markets in the world, American consumers play an unknowing role in perpetuating pirate fishing.Īs the world’s population has grown, the demand for seafood has outpaced it. The problem of ships like the Andrey Dolgov is more relevant to the average American than it might seem: A great deal of ill-gotten fish ends up in the United States, mixed with legitimate catch. To piece together this story, I interviewed experts and officials from more than ten countries, reviewed hundreds of pages of documents and traveled to a remote Indonesian island to look for the ship’s captain. It also shows what can happen when governments and nonprofits join forces on the wild, lawless seas. The tale of this pirate fishing ship, perhaps the most notorious of our time, shines a light into the shadowy universe of illegal fishing-the operators who fund it, the damage they cause to fragile ocean ecosystems and the ways they turn unsuspecting workers into indentured servants. It disguised its electronic identification to confuse pursuers. It changed its name six times, and flew the flag of as many nations. There was a reason the ship remained so elusive: It was a master of disguise. The Antarctic toothfish can grow to be six feet long and, as a large, active predator, plays an important role in its frigid southern ecosystem. Nearly a dozen countries would be roped into the search as Interpol tracked it across two oceans and four seas. After Chinese authorities boarded the ship to collect information and DNA samples, it fled under cover of darkness.Īs it headed away from China’s coast in May of 2016, the ship was fast on its way to becoming the most wanted pirate fishing vessel on the open water. Once again, it attempted to offload Antarctic toothfish-about 275 tons.
It was now calling itself the Ayda and flying a flag from the Togolese Republic. In October 2017, more than a year after its appearance in Yantai, the ship showed up in the port of Dalian, on China’s Liaodong Peninsula. Interpol sent out a purple notice, a call for more information about a criminal’s methods and devices. The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an international regulatory body, put the ship on a black list of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing vessels. When Korean officials went to the company’s address and knocked on the door, they found an empty apartment and a landlord with few answers. Meanwhile, in Lyon, France, Interpol Environmental Security investigators tracked the ship’s supposed owner, the Red Star Company, and its agent, Poseidon Company, to the South Korean port city of Busan. The Ocean Warrior, which pursued the STS-50, was custom-built with €8.3 million from the Netherlands to patrol against illegal fishing operations. The ship of many names, including STS-50, photographed in the Indian Ocean by the conservation group Sea Shepherd. This article is a selection from the September 2020 issue of Smithsonian magazine Buy Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12 Once again, though, the ship was allowed to leave. They seized the stock and fined the Andrey Dolgov. Authorities in Yantai tested the flesh and identified it as Antarctic toothfish. This time, though, officials were on alert. It carried what was most likely the same stock of frozen Antarctic toothfish, but the crew said the haul was Pacific cod for transshipment to Vietnam.
Two months later, the same rust-stained ship appeared in the Chinese port of Yantai, on the Yellow Sea. Namibia denied the ship entry and reported the encounter to international authorities. When port authorities started asking questions, the Andrey Dolgov’s crew said they had merely offloaded the fish from a Korean ship named the Bochang No. Namibia is part of a coalition of nations that have pledged to protect the Antarctic toothfish, which has a high market value and is biologically vulnerable. The ship’s forthright declaration raised suspicions. The total-about 125 tons-would fetch more than $3.6 million on the wholesale market. A crewman radioed ahead and asked for clearance to unload hundreds of thousands of pounds of frozen Antarctic toothfish pieces in sacks and boxes, and an additional 6,200 pounds of toothfish heads. The seas were calm and the winds were light when the Andrey Dolgov, a cargo ship flying the Cambodian flag, motored in from the South Atlantic Ocean toward Walvis Bay, Namibia, one March day in 2016. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
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