Major bust of undersized lobster

Mark Sewell

The Fisheries Department is reporting a major bust of undersized lobsters. A total of four hundred and thirty-one undersized lobsters were confiscated and four persons were detained. They have been identified Luigi Marin, Gerald Foreman, Hubert Palacio and Mark Sewell. The four are well known fishermen from the area south of Caye Chapel. This afternoon, three of the men appeared in court. Marin, Palacio and Sewell were charged with possession of undersized lobster tails. Marin and Sewell pleaded not guilty to the charge while Palacio pleaded guilty. He was fined five hundred dollars plus was order to pay over eight thousand dollars for the undersized lobsters. Fisheries Prosecutor, Hampton Gamboa, told News Five that the fishermen have had previous run-ins with the department.

Hampton Gamboa

Hampton Gamboa, Fisheries Prosecutor

“Fisheries officers headed to the Southern part of Caye Chapel where on one of these fishing camps, we searched the premises and were able to found two icebox; one was partially filled and the other just had a couple lobsters. After the officers procedure of weighing each individual, we ended up with four hundred and thirty-one undersized lobsters. If they are found guilty, we are looking at four hundred and thirty-one multiplied by twenty which is a little bit over eight thousand six hundred dollars and in addition a fine of approximately five hundred dollars. If one person pleads guilty you are looking at roughly about nine thousand dollars. They are well-known lobster trap fishermen from the area south of Caye Chapel in the Belize District. There have been couple encounters with officers on patrol during the season with these same individuals. So we finally were able to with the assistance of the public able to arrest and charge these individuals.  The area is a well known lobster nursery ground and you are looking at someone having well over four hundred undersize lobsters and majority of these lobsters don’t even weight three ounces. So a portion of the juvenile stock that has been tampered with in this case. That entire area of Caye Chapel, Caye Caulker, Long Caye is a well known lobster nursery, lobster ground. Traditionally, most of our lobster trap fishermen in the Belize Judicial District comes from this area so these guys when you look at it from n economical standpoint, they are destroying the nursery ground.”

Lobster season has opened since June fifteenth and will open till February fourteenth.