South Africa has intercepted four Chinese-flagged fishing vessels for entering its territorial waters without authorization, the country’s fisheries minister said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Police and fisheries control officers placed the vessels, owned by Shenzhen Shuiwan Pelagic Fisheries, under guard at the Port of Cape Town.
Authorities charged the vessels’ masters and imposed an administrative penalty of 400,000 rand ($24,118). The vessel owner paid the fine, after which the ships left South African waters.
“South Africa will not tolerate the unlawful use of its maritime zones,” Willie Aucamp said in a statement.
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According to the ministry, the vessels first requested permission on February 23 to transit through South Africa’s Exclusive Economic Zone under the right of “innocent passage.”
They later applied for Off-Port Limits (OPL) authorization but failed to provide the necessary justification or documentation, leading authorities to reject the request.
Investigations later found that the vessels had already entered South African territorial waters while the OPL request was still under review.
They were detected within 12 nautical miles of the KwaZulu-Natal coast and were subsequently tracked along the Eastern Cape coastline.
“The vessels repeatedly switched their Automatic Identification System on and off, a violation of South African laws requiring foreign vessels to keep AIS active while transiting national waters,” the fisheries ministry said.
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Image Credit: Freepik
