Every time you put a can of tuna in your shopping basket, you may be an accessory to international crime worth billions. The criminals are some of the richest in the world, while the victims are amongst the poorest. The criminal activities, which amount to almost 19 billion euro a year, take place night and day all year long. And unless you never eat fish, you have undoubtedly, unknowingly and against your will, bought stolen goods. 

The crime is called pirate fishing.

The fish are disappearing

The sun is beating relentlessly down on the fishing town of Tofo in Mozambique. With powerful pulls of the oars, fishermen force their boats through the surf and onto the beach. One by one they arrive at the shore, breathe out and then pull their boats through the sand, in shelter from the foaming waves. Their catch is small. The boats have no motors, so the fishermen have to row out to the best fishing sites, where they flock around the fish they need in order to ensure their families' survival.

-We row many kilometres out in order to catch fish, but do not really catch anything, says Pedro Rafael, leader of a group of fishermen:

-We used to catch the fish we needed in order to feed our families. Today we cannot catch enough, he says.

Another fisherman, Lorenzo Armado, explains that he often needs to supplement his income by working for local farmers.

-I struggle to catch enough fish for my family. When this fails, we have to buy them at the market, he says.

The fishing industry is the backbone of many of the small communities along the coasts of Mozambique. Approximately half a million people are economically dependent of the fishing,
but fishing is important for other reasons. For the 22 million inhabitants of Mozambique, fish are one of the primary protein sources and thus a fundamental part of the country's food security. There is a huge gap between the row boats of the local fishermen and the industry vessels like Albatun Tres, which can land 3,000 tons of tuna in a single trip. The fishermen rarely see the foreign ships which at night cast their nets far off the coast near Tofo.

-They fish at night, so we do not see them. But at night we see the lights from the large boats three or four sea miles out, says Pedro Rafael.

Every day, the fishermen notice the effects of the presence of the foreign ships. As the leader of the local fishing organisation, Augusto Songane, puts it:

-We can see that foreigners deplete our fish stocks. We, on the other hand, catch no fish.

A reverse Robin Hood

In the deep waters lives the jewel of the sea. The tuna is one of the giants of the sea and,  also, the most valuable fish there is. Six million tons of tuna are caught world-wide each year, amounting to a total of four billion euro.

In other words, there is a huge profit in catching the popular eating fish – and an even bigger one if you bend the rules.
And this is done by the commercial fishing fleets from countries like Russia, Japan, and the biggest fishing nation in Europe, Spain. In a report, several researchers estimate that one  fifth of all fish are caught illegally. This means that upwards of 19 billion euro worth of fish are caught illegally each year. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, annual losses from pirate fishing have been estimated to be 800 million euro.

Fishing agreements are supposed  to guarantee that for example the EU's commercial fleets, would pay a license to fish. But when the agreements are broken, countries like Mozambique
lose the money that they need in order to modernise their fishing industry and to ensure the fishermen's survival.

Instead the rich industrialised countries  - like a reverse Robin Hood – systematically steal enormous sums from the poor developing countries.