On Friday March 24th Fisheries and TIDE Rangers had to play sea sleuths with a boat carrying a large amount of salted shark meat and dried shark fins - likely designated for illegal export to Guatemala. First, they had to team up to catch the vessel which tried to escape from the Port Honduras Marine Reserve Rangers.
Then after they detained the vessel and its two crew, and were escorting them back to Punta Gorda, they escaped again, this time under the cover of night.
The rangers searched all along the coast, but found nothing. It wasn't until the next morning when a good Samaritan called TIDE and reported that two fishermen had requested his assistance in exporting salted marine products to Guatemala. With that, an arrest was finally made on the morning of Saturday March 22nd. The fishermen, Jose A. Chulin of Ranchito in the Corozal District and Lineker Ortega of Temash River in the Toledo District were charged with shark finning, possession of a gill net longer than 100 metres, and attempting to export fish without an exporters license.
Their boat carried 2 gills nets longer than 100m, 542 pieces of salted shark, 439 pieces of mackerel and catfish and 73 shark fins.
They were arraigned in Punta Gorda Magistrate's Court and bailed. Most of the product had to be thrown away because it was spoiling.
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