MERSING: An inspection on a Malaysian-registered fishing vessel led the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) to discover 1,700 litres of diesel hidden inside the fishing storage.
Mersing maritime zone director maritime commander Suhaizan Saadin said the fishing boat was detained during Ops Jaksa and Ops Tiris, some 1.0 nautical miles northeast of Pulau Layak here, at around 12.30pm on Tuesday (Oct 1).
“Following inspection by our enforcement team, we suspected the fishing vessel had committed an offence by violating its licence by storing fuel inside its fishing storage.
“Checks on the vessel found it has modified the fishing storage compartment to store the fuel,” he said on Wednesday (Oct 2).
Suhaizan also said further checks on the eight crewmen found all of them were Vietnamese nationals, aged between 32 and 46.
He said one of the crewmen did not have any identification documents or approval to work on a fishing vessel.
Suhaizan said the vessel together with its crew have been detained at the maritime Malaysia jetty at Teluk Gading for further action.
He added that the case would be investigated under Section 8(b) of the Fisheries Act 1985 and Immigration Act 1959/63.
