Six people have been arrested on charges of illegal fishing of protected species in raids carried out jointly by Interpol and Spanish police in Galicia in northwest Spain.



The six include five members of the Vidal family who run Ribeiro Vidal Armadores, among them Antonio Vidal, the owner, and three of his children who are accused of illegally fishing Patagonian toothfish in Antarctic waters.

The fish, which is rich in allegedly health-enhancing Omega-3 fatty acids, is known as “white gold” in the industry as it can sell for as much as €130 (£100) a kilo. A large catch can be worth as much as €50m so poachers are willing to risk being fined for illegal fishing.

The Vidal family, which has a previous record of illegal fishing, has a factory in the town of Boiro which for several years has been manufacturing products based on Omega-3. The factory was one of three premises searched during the raids and the presence of both Interpol and Europol agents suggests the investigation is international in scope and further arrests may follow.

“This is the first time that the Spanish Civil Guard, Interpol and Europol have joined forces against illegal fishing in a joint action,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of the NGO Oceana in Europe. “This announcement is a watershed in the fight to eradicate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing of our oceans.”

“What’s different is that it isn’t just the ministry of agriculture that’s involved but the police, Interpol and above all the Audiencia Nacional (high court),” says Elvira Jiménez, head of Greenpeace Spain’s oceans campaign. “We haven’t seen the details of the charges but if the high court is involved these are now criminal proceedings and could lead to jail sentences, not just fines.”

Police sources allege that at the time of his arrest Antonio Vidal did not deny fishing in the Antarctic but said it was only illegal for countries that had signed the treaty to protect fish stocks. As his ship was flagged in Equatorial Guinea, which is not a signatory, he claimed he had done nothing wrong.

According to Jiménez, however, he would still need permission to fish in those waters, regardless of where his ship was flagged. Furthermore, she says, as Spain is a signatory to the European agreement to outlaw illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, Vidal’s activities amount to a serious infraction.

This is not the first time the Vidals have been accused of illegal fishing and Antonio Vidal has already been convicted in the US for attempting to smuggle toothfish. His vessels have been blacklisted but the ships have been renamed and reflagged in countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Mauretania and Panama as many as six times in order to evade the authorities. One of his ships was renamed three times in a year, Jiménez says.

In 2015 Spain’s agriculture ministry imposed fines of over €17m on three Galician-based vessels, all blacklisted and all linked to Vidal, for illegal fishing. The same three vessels were pursued by the New Zealand navy in Antarctic waters last year for illegal fishing.

These fines have been offset by the generous subsidies – as much as €16m, according to Greenpeace – that Vidal’s companies have received over the years from the Spanish government and the European Union.

The Patagonian toothfish is a species of cod icefish and that can weigh as much as 150kg and may live for up to 50 years. However, as it takes as long as 15 years to reach sexual maturity and has a low reproductive rate, it is particularly vulnerable. The Prince of Wales is among those who have campaigned for its protection.