When the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 956 was apprehended in June 2019, it seemed like a victory in Ghana’s long war on illegal fishing. The industrial trawler had been caught fishing for sardinella, a widely consumed species reserved for small-scale fishers. Authorities issued a US $1-million fine to the vessel’s apparent owner, the Ghana-based Gyinam Fisheries & Sons Limited. But the company refused to pay, the vessel continued to fish, and, less than a year later, the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 956 was detained again for the same crime.
Hefty fines can be effective deterrents to illegal fishing; but in the case of the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 956, the fine never reached its true owner. An investigation by the nonprofit Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) revealed that Gyinam Fisheries & Sons Limited is actually a front for a Chinese company: Rongcheng Ocean Fisheries Company Limited.
Foreign investment is technically prohibited in Ghana’s industrial trawl sector, but that doesn’t stop it from happening. To get around the ban, foreigners pay locals to set up a front company, and to look the other way as foreign-owned vessels fish in Ghanaian waters. The EJF investigation found that, as of 2018, over 90 percent of the Ghanaian industrial fleet was effectively Chinese owned.
These illegal joint ventures are but one example of a vexing problem plaguing global fisheries: the use of complex administrative structures to mask the true ownership of fishing companies.
The person who ultimately profits from a fishing vessel is known as the beneficial owner, and there are several reasons why that person may want to conceal their identity, says Duncan Copeland, executive director of nonprofit Trygg Mat Tracking, which recently published a report detailing complex company structures in the fishing industry....
....MUCH MORE
