SEAFOODNEWS.COM by John Sackton — September 23, 2014 –Russia has detained the Lithuanian fishing vessel Jūros Vilkas (Sea Wolf), which is owned by Arctic Fishing, of which US citizen Alexander-Yuri Silagy is the sole shareholder.
The Lithuanian government has protested to the Russians.
Russia says the vessel was illegally fishing snow crab in Russian waters, and had 30,000 lbs of crab on board. The vessel, with 28 crew, was seized and taken to Murmansk.
According to the Baltic News Service, Director of the fisheries Department Ministry of agriculture Darius Nanus told BNS that the ship briefly went into the territorial waters of Russia, but was detained in international waters.
"All the circumstances and details are still to be determined but, according to our satellite system, the vessel was detained in international waters, not in the exclusive economic zone of Russia. According to our information, the accusation is that the boat entered the exclusive economic zone of Russia and fished there.
Our Satellite communication system, which uses the European control Agency for fishing, shows that the ship came into the exclusive economic zone of Russia on 8th September and only for an hour. For such a short time there was nothing it could do there, he told BNS.
According to him, the crew of the ship consists of 28 people, three of whom are citizens of Lithuania. The other members of the crew, he reported, "most likely, they are not EU citizens".
"We ascertain the fact that, in our opinion, Russia violated international obligations and agreements – the vessel was detained in international waters. Only for this reason does the fact seem ambiguous. If detained in the economic zone of Russia, the violation would be obvious," he told BNS.
According to the Central registry, the sole shareholder Arctic Fishing, which owns the vessel, is a US citizen Alexander-Yuri Silagy, and the company managing Director is Giedrius Gruzdis. Gruzdis told DELFI that he does not have accurate information about the vessel.
DELFI, a Lithuanian news portal, was able to communicate with the control services of the port of Murmansk, but they would not provide information about the arrest Jūros Vilkas.
"According to the entry in field log of the ship was caught 15 tons of snow crab", says DELFI. The Ministry of agriculture of Lithuania received a message stating that the Russian officials about 700 km from Murmansk detained a registered in Lithuania vessel Jūros Vilkas and towed it to Murmansk.
The head of the Lithuanian Union of seamen Petras Becia explained to DELFI that the vessels Karalius and Jūros vilkas were recently purchased by Arctic Fishing, and went under the Lithuanian flag.
"They recently bought them and for the first time sent in the Barents sea for crabs. As far as I know, they were planning to catch crabs from Norwegian and Russian territorial waters. There must be backers behind them for they could do that without quotas," said Becia.
According to him, the vessels came from Kamchatka. "They (the vessels – DELFI) went from Kamchatka, through the Panama canal to Holland, where they are repaired, and they ordered inspectors from the Lithuanian administration safe shipping and submitted an application for registration under the Lithuanian flag, " he said.
Although they met all the requirements, the seafarers ' Union drew attention to the company Arctic Fishing for operating under non-Lithuanian laws.
"We have received information indicating that before leaving the ship the inspectors had not been informed of employed persons, as required by the Labor code, and that violated the requirement that the Lithuanian ship, both trading and commercial seafarers from EU countries should be not less than two-thirds of the team. We have asked the State labour Inspectorate to investigate." said Becia.
According to one source, we should not exclude the possibility that the vessel in foreign waters was due to lack of experience.
According to him, if in the Russian mass media report the truth, the vessel was detained by border guards, and they had no right to do so.
This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.