Report tolls cost of fish piracy in billions
Fish piracy — seafood caught illegally, not reported to authorities or outside environmental and catch regulations — represents as much as $10 billion to $23 billion in global losses each year, a non-profit conservation group estimated Wednesday.
Because pirated fish is sold on black markets, specifics of the economic impact are tough to decipher. But Oceana, a Washington-based organization, looked at the records of fish catches by country as reported to the United Nations, then compared those statistics to seafood sales in various world markets.