Chinese, Viet Corruption Imperils World's Shrinking Fisheries

As Indonesia’s fisheries minister, Edhy Prabowo was tasked with protecting one of his country’s most precious resources: Baby lobsters so tiny one can fit on the tip of a finger.

Photo Insert: There is a long history of foreign companies — particularly from China — forging corrupt relationships with fisheries officials.

But overfishing in recent decades decimated the crustacean’s population, so much so that fishermen turned to catching the hatchlings, shipping them to Vietnamese lobster farms, where the adults are sold mostly to dealers in China to meet its enormous demand for seafood, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Such harvesting and export were banned by Indonesia’s fishing ministry in 2016 but Prabowo lifted the ban in May 2020.

Documents show that in June 2020, the minister accepted a $77,000 bribe from a seafood supplier to grant it a permit to ship the hatchings abroad. In his short stint as minister, Prabowo accepted bribes of nearly $2 million.

He was arrested the same year after purchasing 26 road bikes, Old Navy children’s clothes, Louis Vuitton bags, Rolex watches and two luxury pens. Prabowo, 50, was sentenced to five years in prison for corruption, Fu Ting, Grace Ekpu and Helen Wieffering reported for AP.

The AP review found that most cases of corruption and graft were low-level schemes, like one in India in which prosecutors last year alleged two fisheries officers extorted $1,100 to approve subsidies for a fish farm.

Another incident involved fishermen reportedly bribing Malaysian officers with at least $11,000 for every boat they agreed not to report. Some are much larger and involve global financial institutions.

In 2021, the Swiss bank Credit Suisse admitted to fraudulently financing a massive loan to Mozambique to expand its tuna fishing fleet. A contractor handling the loan paid kickbacks of $150 million to Mozambican government officials, Colleen Barry, Ciarán Giles and Joshua Goodman reported for AP.

Stephen Akester, a fisheries management adviser who has worked in Africa and South Asia for four decades, said there is a long history of foreign companies — particularly from China — forging corrupt relationships with fisheries officials.

“They exploited the weakness of these governments for whom any kind of revenue was big money, even small dollars,” he said. “And that still continues today,” Abdoulie John, Sheikh Saaliq, Edna Tarigan and Niniek Karmini also reported for AP.

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