MMEA sends asset to probe foreign trawlers off Lutong

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Two foreign trawlers manoeuvre dangerously close to a local trawler after their crew realised their photos were being taken by the local captain.

MIRI: The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) has deployed its asset to probe reports of foreign trawlers ‘aggressively’ engaged in illegal fishing activities.

MMEA Miri enforcement chief Captain Mohd Fauzi Othman said the agency had received reports from local fishermen that two trawlers – believed to be Vietnamese – were spotted about seven nautical miles off Lutong.

“We are dispatching our asset to the location provided by local fishermen to check on suspected encroachment and illegal fishing by foreign trawlers,” he told The Borneo Post yesterday.

He stressed that MMEA will take stern action under Malaysian law against any foreign fishing vessel found to have encroached the nation’s waters.

“We routinely monitor Miri waters off Kuala Baram up to Suai in Niah, to check against such encroachment,” added Mohd Fauzi.

Meanwhile, it is learned that the aggressive manoeuvres of the foreign trawlers nearly resulted in a collision with one local trawler.

It is said that apart from the foreign trawlers using the pairing method to catch fish, which is illegal, their crew members also resorted to throwing hard and sharp objects at any local trawler they happen to come across.