Swim with the fishes indeed.
From The Economist, November 21:
Fish farming is big business in Chile. Stealing fish is, too
WEARING HI-VIS jackets and heavy boots, the men in the CCTV footage almost look as though they are meant to be there—until one pulls out a gun. On March 20th at least ten men burst into a cold-storage facility in San Antonio, a port in central Chile, threatened its employees and made off in four lorries filled with salmon worth some 600m pesos ($616,000). Their plot was soon foiled. In April police recovered some of the fish in San Felipe, a nearby commune. And in August they arrested 11 people in connection with the heist. Officials behind the sting—dubbed Operación Santo Salmón (Operation Holy Salmon)—think the gang was planning to sell the goods during Lent, when Catholics forgo meat in favour of fish.Robberies have become a big problem for Chile’s second-largest export business; salmon farming generated 6trn pesos in revenue and supported some 70,000 jobs in 2023. There were just two robberies in 2018, according to SalmonChile, which represents the country’s fish farmers. That number has since leapt sharply. Between 2019 and 2023 there were 158 salmon robberies, most of which targeted cargoes of fish being delivered by lorry. Many more are thought to go unreported.
The crime wave has battered the industry. SalmonChile puts losses since 2019 at more than 67bn pesos. Firms are spending more on insurance and tracking equipment. Lorry drivers are afraid, as the heists sometimes turn violent; two drivers were abducted during robberies earlier this year. Many firms are avoiding their usual delivery routes in the south. Some drivers have started wearing bulletproof vests. Ricardo García of Salmones Camanchaca, a fish-farming business, reckons that these additional expenses, combined with the losses, are costing the industry around 1% of its gross operating profits each year.
A couple of factors lie behind the recent rise in crime. Making off with a lorry-load of salmon—typically worth around 200m pesos—was always bound to be lucrative.....
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