A FISHING company and two merchants agreed to pay confiscation orders totalling £891,196 at Newcastle Crown Court last Thursday (21 February).
The defendants were also ordered to pay a total of £40,000 in fines and costs.
The case came to court following an investigation by the Assets Recovery Agency and the MFA.
TN Trawlers' skippers caught valuable species of quota fish such as plaice and sole worth hundreds of thousands of pounds but failed to declare it. The 'black' fish was then sold on through merchants and disguised in their books as non-quota species like turbot, brill and lemon sole.
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