Poaching Operation

[Rare]

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/29589956/4-a ... a2ilaRVhHz


4 arrested in illegal poaching operation

NAPLES, FL -
Four men were arrested after an investigation found they were running a massive poaching operation in the Gulf of Mexico.
Florida Fish & Wildlife's investigation lasted more than a year, culminating Saturday when they searched two boats and found more than 200 illegal pieces of fish and a sea turtle.Arrested were David Vazquez Costa, Adnier Lobaina Lopez, Jose Escalona and Jorge Escalona. All four face a laundry list of charges, with three facing felonies.

FWC said the fish were hidden so well that even a routine search might have missed them. A K-9 officer actually helped them sniff out the illegal filets when officers served the search warrant. They say they knew about the secret compartments from months of surveillance."They were in possession of an ungodly number of illegal species on board their vessel," FWC's Jorge Pino said.

Among the fish found were Goliath grouper and undersized red grouper, more than 100 over the bag limit.
Officers had been watching Vazquez Acosta and Jorge Escalona for more than a year. Pino called them professional poachers."These two individuals knew exactly what they were doing. They built their vessels specifically to hide fish, and we knew that," Pino said.

Capt. Scott Fridley is a fishing captain in Naples, and he said there's a reason to follow the fishing laws.
"Rules are made to keep our stocks high so we can give our customers and clients good fishing trips," he said. "If people are taking undersized fish, they'll never grow up to be a legal fish that you can physically keep… it does hurt our industry."
Two juveniles were also on the boat. While not arrested, they will face charges. FWC will keep the boats.

[k5523915]

busted

[baseball4life702]

They never last no matter how sneaky they are... Got Em

[Kingofthesea]

Now that ya "got em" whatcha gonna do with them? Oh I know......absolutely nothing. The cost of that year long investigation far exceeds the benefit of temporarily stopping these two. But, now we get to feed and cloth them for a while. Brilliant.

[IceBoy]

Just sad to know awesome fishlike groupers are being poached like that, who knows how many more poachers there are