KEY POINTS:
An Auckland commercial fisherman was yesterday jailed for 18 months for quota fraud, in which he was believed to have illegally taken over 190 tonnes of orange roughy.
Stephen John Krynicki, 40, was sentenced in Auckland District Court after earlier pleading guilty to a number of charges of falsifying his fishing catch returns.
The returns claimed he was fishing in one location when he was actually catching fish in another place.
The Ministry of Fisheries said it was believed to be the first time a fisherman had been jailed for quota fraud.
Krynicki was also banned from fishing for three years.
Fisheries Ministry investigations manager Mark Nicholson welcomed the court's decision, saying such offending had the potential to affect the viability of the entire orange roughy fishery.
He said the more than 190 tonnes of orange roughy Krynicki was believed to have illegally caught was "a very significant amount".
The total allowable commercial catch was just 1400 tonnes a year for the area in which he was fishing, the East Cape to North Cape and down the west coast of North Island to Wellington.
Mr Nicholson said offending of Krynicki's sort risked undermined all the trust and co-operation between the ministry and the commercial industry.
"Krynicki blatantly ignored fishing rules," he said.
The fisherman switched off his electronic monitoring device, which continually updated his position via satellite to the ministry.
He claimed his Automatic Location Communicator (ALC) was broken and then proceeded to report false positions while continuing to fish over vulnerable sea mounts or underwater hills.
At least twice, Krynicki reported that he was in Spirits Bay at the north of the North Island when he was actually fishing over the Tauroa Knoll, more than 100 nautical miles away in the Tasman Sea.
It was Krynicki's second conviction for such offending.
In 1998, he was also caught deliberately misreporting catches and was fined $14,000.
"Obviously he has no respect for either the industry he works in nor the resource that gives him his living."
Krynicki's fishing ban means he will not be able to hold a fishing licence, or engage in any fishing activity (including recreational fishing or shellfish gathering).
Also, he will not be able to derive any income from any fishing activity.
- NZPA
