NOAA Fisheries logo
[ music, agents walking into fish house]
[ inspection of fish ]
[ inspection of air cargo ]
[ air cargo labels - fish companies ]
[ agents inspecting cargo labeling]
NOAA's Office of Law Enforcement
Protecting the Nation's Marine Resources
through Investigative Work
Law enforcement plays an integral role in
NOAA's mission to maintain sustainable
and productive fisheries and safeguard
our nation's marine resources.
NOAA's Enforcement officers and Special Agents
are our nation's ocean police force.
They enforce laws and regulations for
commercial and recreational marine fisheries
and marine protected areas,
investigate seafood fraud,
seafood smuggling,
and prevent unregulated illegal harvesting
and trafficking of seafood.
In the United States,
we take action on many levels to combat
illegal fishing and ensure fairness for U.S. fishermen
on the water and in the marketplace.
U.S. fisheries enforcement efforts serve as a
model for other countries,
many of which do not have strong
marine resource protection programs in place.
We recently concluded a year and half
undercover investigation where we were able
to discover and uncover numerous persons
that were involved in the Gulf of Mexico
IFQ fishery that were literally robbing the fishery
with unreported catches of red snapper and grouper.
Those fish were never reported;
they can't be counted against the quota
and when you have an honest fisherman
that goes out every day and plays by the rules,
reports his catch,
make's sure the catch are legal size
and brings them in and counts them against his quota,
then you've got somebody else out there
doing it illegally it's like them taking money
out of another person's bank account.
There is no guarantee for these people
without law enforcement that everybody's
playing by the rules
and all the rules are the same for each person.
Law enforcement is very important to us.
You know without accountability
there would not be any fishery.
Stewardship on our part and accountability
brought from law enforcement sure makes
the management plan work.
Without that, it's not going to work.
NOAA Enforcement officers are on the front line
every day
conducting inspections,
providing answers to questions
from the regulated community,
and following up on reports related to
fishing and incidents with protected species,
such as turtles and dolphins.
We also have a decent enough relationship
where we can walk into fish houses during
non-inspection times and just discuss the
current issues in the fishery.
A lot of this has lead to some
really significant investigations.
The agency's long-term, complex investigations
are led by NOAA's special agents.
We were able to locate a dealer that did not have
any of the proper licensing buying fish
from boats that also were not recording
their catch against their quotas and
in doing so they were taking fish
out of the fishery and selling them for
lower prices–unreported landings
and impacting the legitimate commercial
fishermen because that quota is not
being reported. Part of the investigation
involved locating the dealer and getting
him out of the business and then
we took the dealers place with an undercover
fishing business and we swooped up
his clientele and located the certain
number of fishermen that were actually
poaching in large scale amounts,
unloading them at night and
taking them off site to sell.
We indicted eight people on multiple
counts of false labeling,
fraud and Lacey Act violations.
Other NOAA Office of Law enforcement
investigative areas involve
protection of marine mammals,
enforcement of sanctuary laws,
and the protection of endangered species.
NOAA Enforcement handles more than
3,000 incidents per year as they work
to ensure a level playing field
across the fishing industry
and the protection of marine resources.
Investigating and proving violations of
U.S. marine fishing regulations is complex work,
and necessary to ensure sustainable
fisheries now and into the future.