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The Sakhalin Committee for Fisheries has accused two nature protection officials and the federal Far Eastern Nature Protection Marine Service of shielding crab poachers in Svetlaya Bay off the north coast of Primorye.

According to the Fisheries Committee, its inspectors seized the Primorets and the Dedovo April 24 as the vessels were hauling full crab pots left behind by poachers. Two federal inspectors, Yaroslav Ivanov and Vasily Solomonyuk, allegedly supervised the process.

The boats kept the catch rather than returning it to the sea as required by federal regulations. Five tons of crab found onboard the two seiners was reportedly to be shipped to Japan.

Just before the incident, according to sources, the federal inspectors detained the Sakhalin seiner Sinitsino in the same vicinity of the two ships under investigation. The inspectors allegedly confiscated the fish catch of the Sinitsino, on grounds that its captain had no documents to approve the catch, then transferred the fish to another ship that did have a license.

Marine Service Deputy Chief Alexander Sergiyenko said that while the Primorets and Dedevo were indeed retrieving poachers’ crab pots, inspectors didn’t return the catch to the sea because of the likelihood the crabs would perish before reaching the bottom.

“I gave the instructions to sell the crab to Japan,” said Sergiyenko.

The federal Marine Service has since called the Sakhalin Fisheries Committee’s actions illegal. The Service also accuses the Sakhalin inspectors of loading the crab confiscated from the Primorets and the Dedovo onto other ships and confiscating the documentation of the crab catch and the federal inspectors’ decisions.

Sergei Goncharuk, chief of the Sakhalin Fisheries Committee, refused to comment on the dispute.

Just after the May holidays, Far Eastern Nature Protection Service chief Valery Suslikov traveled to Sakhalin to discuss the disagreement between the two departments.