Fish importers guilty of breaches

13 October 2011
DAFF11/028D

Quarantine Officers from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) have detected and prosecuted recent breaches of Australia’s importation laws, leading to two successful prosecutions.

Illegal salmon imports

A Sydney company was fined $10,000 in the Brisbane Magistrates Court for illegally importing more than 50 kilograms of Scottish salmon on 24 June 2010.

DAFF quarantine officers detected the salmon in a consignment of frozen seafood that arrived in Brisbane from Sweden in June 2010. The company had provided false and misleading documents and lacked the required import permits.

DAFF investigators executed a search warrant at the company’s offices and found fraudulent documents used to facilitate the illegal importation.

The company was charged with illegal importation under the Quarantine Act 1908 and producing false or misleading documents under the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995.

Prohibited ornamental fish

A Sydney woman was fined more than $5,000 for illegally importing prohibited ornamental fish into Australia.

The woman pleaded guilty in Sydney’s Downing Centre Court on 27 September of attempting to import 240 featherfin catfish by falsely declaring them as Synodontis nigriventris, ‘upside–down catfish’, a species permitted to be imported into Australia.

DAFF quarantine officers detected the fish during an inspection of live ornamental fish in a consignment from Indonesia and correctly identified the fish as Synodontis eupterus, the prohibited featherfin catfish.

Featherfin catfish are a prohibited import into Australia under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and the Quarantine Act 1908.

She was charged for aid and abet in the importation of a regulated live specimen under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

The maximum penalty for breaching this law is $110,000 and/or 10 years jail.