Paua seized from black market ring

Fishery officers have seized about $15,000 of frozen paua after a year-long operation monitoring a black market shellfish ring.

Twelve months of monitoring black market activity finished when officers moved in and seized paua, dive gear and electronic equipment across Bay of Plenty today and yesterday.

The black market ring was allegedly centred around Motiti Island, off the coast of Tauranga, where divers gathered paua and kina and sold them to a network of buyers in Tauranga, Whakatane, Hamilton and Auckland.

Fishery officers and police searched houses at Motiti Island and in Tauranga as well as several business premises including a powered-storage facility at Mount Maunganui where they seized two freezers containing 116kg of paua with a commercial value of $15,000. The paua was minced and frozen in 500g and 1kg bags - 210 bags in total.

A Tauranga food business is alleged to be involved in the sale of paua and kina.

Ministry for Primary Industries district compliance manager Waikato/Bay of Plenty Brendon Mikkelsen said this week's operation was the result of 12 months of investigation and analysis into black market activity.

During this time, it is believed 231kg of minced paua with a commercial value of $30,000 was poached and sold. It is believed 43L of kina were poached and sold for $3500.

Officers seized 116kg of paua, two freezers, 35 electronic devices, including computers, tablets and cell phones and diving gear.

Mr Mikkelsen said paua and kina were a prized resource in Bay of Plenty.

"Paua and kina don't move around much and need to be in reasonable numbers to successfully reproduce. Such offending in concentrated areas may impact on the species ability to breed and on other people's opportunity to gather."

"People like this are effectively thieving seafood from their own communities to make a quick buck."

Mr Mikkelsen said fishery officers would be going through the seized electronic equipment and doing further investigations before considering laying charges.

"We'd like to hear from anyone who may have information that will help us with our inquiries."

* Any suspicious fishing activity can be passed to the 0800 4POACHER hotline (0800 4 762 243).

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