Sunday
Feb012009
"These were fish pirates" - Feds break up black market striper ring
Sunday, February 1, 2009 at 4:31PM
This investigation started in 2003.
State and federal investigators have broken up a black market involving watermen and fish dealers who sold millions of dollars' worth of striped bass, illegally taken from the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River, to shops and restaurants across the country, according to court documents filed in federal court this week.
Annually, Maryland's 1,231 licensed watermen account for about 2
million pounds of the 7 million pounds of striped bass legally caught
commercially on the Eastern Seaboard. The poaching scheme described in
court documents and by sources means that the state vastly exceeded its
annual striped bass quota for five years.
LINK (Via:The Baltimore Sun)
tagged chesapeake bay, commercial fishing, maryland, potomac river, striper in News