FOUR fishermen from the same family have admitted illegally landing £6.6 million-worth of herring and mackerel.
Andrew Tait, 50, William Tait, 50, Robert Tait, 45, and Peter Tait, 44, committed the offences at Shetland Catch in Lerwick and Alexander Buchan in Peterhead between 2002 and 2006.
They falsely declared the amount of fish landed, to evade the annual fishing quota allowed for their vessels.
The value of each of their undeclared landings were: Andrew Tait £1,671,622.58; William Tait £1,585,870.32; Robert Tait £1,759,298.66; and Peter Tait £1,574,549.78; totalling around £6.6m.
All four pled guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh and will be sentenced there on September 6.
Lindsey Miller, head of the Crown Office's serious and organised crime division, said: "The guilty pleas today followed an extensive and complex investigation undertaken jointly by Grampian Police and Northern Constabulary.
"A number of other skippers and processing plants have already been successfully prosecuted, had confiscation orders made against them and sentenced for similar offences.
"The legislation is there to protect the marine environment for the good of all and to safeguard the future of the fishing industry
"These prosecutions should send a clear message there is no place in Scotland for those who want a lifestyle funded by crime."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article