Boats seized, mud crabs freed in seafood sting

Boats were seized and mud crabs were freed in a crackdown on black-market seafood trafficking in southeast Queensland, including Moreton Bay, the Gold Coast and Brisbane. Three boats will be destroyed after successful prosecutions tied to illegal seafood sales. Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol officers caught two offenders selling seafood outside the state’s commercial fishing system. A man from Russell Island was fined $10,000 for black-market sales of mud crabs, king threadfin salmon and mulloway. Officers also found 139 protected bivalve molluscs and an undersized mud crab, and the court ordered him to forfeit the vessel and related equipment. In line with two earlier prosecutions, all forfeited boats are to be crushed.