Tag Archives: foreign nationals

Coast Guard halts illegal use of “paper captains” in WA-based tuna fishing operation

Since 2019, Coast Guard personnel, working collaboratively with CBP and NOAA agents, detected eight separate “paper captain” violations operating in the Pacific Northwest. Paper captain is a term applied to an individual listed on documents as a U.S.-flagged vessel’s captain but in actuality serves as a deckhand or in a similar lower‐level capacity. Thus far, one Washington-based fishing fleet has paid $9,150 in civil penalties and has been cited for $140,000 in additional penalties still pending adjudication. >click to read< 17:54