A PROCESSING firm involved in a black fish scam has been hit with a £1.5 million confiscation order.
Shetland Catch Ltd was also fined £150,000 at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday.
The company, based in Gremista, Lerwick, had previously pled guilty to assisting vessel skippers in making undeclared landings.
Between 2002 and 2005 Shetland Catch helped vessel skippers who falsely declared the quantity of fish they landed as a means of evading the annual fishing quota allowed to each vessel.
The skippers and another processing firm made illegal landings of herring and mackerel worth tens of millions of pounds.
Seventeen Scottish skippers and processing company Alexander Buchan have already been fined a total of almost £1m for the scam. The convictions came as the result of a seven-year investigation, Operation Trawler, after the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency, now Marine Scotland, became suspicious about widespread illegal landing of pelagic fish.
Detective Superintendent Gordon Gibson, of Grampian Police, who led the investigation, said: "Those involved at the highest level of this company were absolutely complicit in this criminal activity.
"Shetland Catch Ltd earlier pled guilty to these crimes, however, the confiscation order and fine imposed today by Lord Turnbull show that they will not be allowed to profit from their criminal enterprise."
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