The Coast Guard on Sunday intercepted two more Venezuelan boats fishing illegally in Guyana’s waters, one of which had a six-year-old boy on board.
Sunday morning’s interception has brought to four, the total number of foreign vessels nabbed in Guyana’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the space of a month.
But officials are concerned over the discovery of the boy who the army said was the only person who spoke a little English. It has not yet been determined whether the child, the first to have been intercepted by Guyanese authorities under such circumstances, is related to one of the crewmembers, and/or was being taken illegally to another country.
No documents were found on board either vessel to allow authorities to determine where the vessels were registered.
But the army said it was the child who claimed that the fishermen were from Venezuela.
“Because there were no records of identification for the crew or the vessel, there is room to believe that the fishermen could have been involved in other illegal activities,” a source told Stabroek News.
GDF spokesman, Major Hubert Meusa, when contacted by this newspaper yesterday, confirmed that the vessels, both bearing the same name - Isla de Congrego - and captained by Otilla and Rafael Gonzales, had been apprehended.
The boats, with four crewmembers each, not including the child, were escorted to Region One (Barima/Waini), where they were handed over to the police.
The Guyana Defence Force in a press release yesterday said the 40-foot wooden boats, which were nabbed some four miles off the northern Waini Beacon, Waini River, had a total of 5,000-8,000 pounds of shark and a quantity of mixed fish.
In an invited comment, Commander Terrence Pile of the GDF Coast Guard told this newspaper: “We see this as a systematic plundering of our resources...when one leaves, another comes in.”
Early last month, the Coast Guard intercepted the ‘Maria Giovanna II’, another Venezuelan vessel, with more than 20,000 pounds of mixed fish, valued at $1M, two crates of prawns and 10 crates of seabobs.
A week later, another Venezuelan vessel, the ‘Marco Polo’, was nabbed with 64,800 pounds of fish and other seafood, worth more than $3M.
It was initially believed that that vessel had only 7,000 pounds of mixed fish, but Pile yesterday said it had a much larger quantity.
The captains of both vessels were subsequently charged and placed before the court and the catch confiscated. In both of those instances, the vessels were part of a larger fleet. But Pile said yesterday that the crews of the vessels intercepted on Sunday did not appear to be acting in concert with any others.
All four vessels were nabbed during a self-imposed ‘closed season’ by the Guyana Trawler Owners Association, so as to allow the marine species to propagate.
In a recent interview, Pile had pointed out that the interception of foreign vessels was not confined to the closed season, since the operation of the Coast Guard is ongoing.
That season officially came to an end yesterday, but one person claimed that the local fishermen preempted that move. Stabroek News understands that at least 30 vessels were spotted heading out to sea on Sunday night.
Well-placed sources warned that it has been the trend of the Venezuelan Coast Guard or navy to respond to the apprehension of their boats, by intercepting Guyanese vessels that are fishing legally in this country’s waters.
“It has happened in the past,” one person remarked.