The Guardia Civil and the Servicio de Inspección Pesquera (Junta) discovered that the fishpens off Salobreña that should have been inactive, were producing mussels for sale.
In other words, these shellfish were being marketed without authorisation or health control. The Police found around a tonne of live mussel and returned them to the sea.
As a preventative measure they also confiscated the launch that the fish pen owners used to managed the pens and bring back the mussels that were ready for sale.
The police discovered that it was precisely the company that was in charge of dismantling the pens in the defunct installation that had taken advantage of the situation to farm mussels during the whole summer, allegedly in cahoots with the owners of the fish farm to sell the mussels through the blackmarket so that they would be untraceable and not have to pass through health controls.
The police were joined by the Servicio Marítimo Provincial based in Motril, officers from the Servicio de Protección de La Naturaleza (Seprona) also based in Motril and inspectors from the Junta’s fishery control. When they sailed out to the pens they caught the crew of the fish farm launch redhanded, loading 98 sacks of mussels, weighing approximately a tonne, onto the boat.
The company that should have dismantled the pens, the manager of the fish farm and the three workers caught loading mussels onto their launch have all been charged under the Ley 1/2002, de 4 de abril, de Ordenación, Fomento y Control de La Pesca Marítima,el Marisqueo y la Acuicultura Marina .
(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)
Ray: Yes, I saw the boat, too, as I was coming down from Monte de Los Almendros. Bit busy at the mo, preparing the November issue, but will enquire. Thanks for the positive feedback, too!
Do you have any update on the status of the fish farm? I understood that it was in the process of being dismantled and removed. For the last 3 days there has been a service boat on site for a few hours each time.
Thank you for providing such a wonderful service over the last 30+ years.
Noooo.!! Cheating persons, fishermen of a sort. That’s awful. !! Martin , if he has the information to hand. Will normally give out the ethnicity of naughty persons. So if not given. I can guess there were local Spanish persons. Practising Spanish Practices. !!?? I’m sure like the previous fish in these pens. The mussels were of the utmost good quality and the persons were just trying to see if another method of working with nature would work well.