A trio of recreational anglers from Alberta has been fined a total of $30,000 in B.C. provincial court for violations of the federal Fisheries Act.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada issued a news release touting the fines this week, but the violations that led to them happened in 2019.
Giorri Anufriev, Anikita Barsukoff and Joseph Martushevi were found guilty of "numerous violations" that occurred between July 13 and 18 of that year, the DFO said.
Those violations included "possessing fish in excess of their daily licence limit, possessing fish where the species could not be readily determined, and possessing fish where the size could not be readily determined," according to the release.
The trio was found guilty in Prince Rupert provincial court in October 2022. At a sentencing hearing last month, each offender was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and prohibited from fishing for two years.
According to the DFO, fishery officers received a tip from a concerned member of the public four years ago about a group of men trying to process a large amount of Pacific halibut.
Investigators inspected a commercial outlet, where they found that the group had cut up their catch into chunks so the size and number of fish could not be determined, the DFO said.
Officers later found five more coolers of "various species of rockfish" in the anglers' hotel room, according to the release. Among those species was Yelloweye, which is illegal to retain recreationally.
"The halibut, totalling in excess of 150 pounds, were seized and used as evidence for the investigation," the DFO said in its release.
