South Africa has intercepted four Chinese-flagged fishing vessels for entering its territorial waters without authorisation, the country’s Fisheries minister announced on Thursday.
Police and fisheries control officers placed the vessels, owned by Shenzhen Shuiwan Pelagic Fisheries, under guard at the Port of Cape Town after they were detected operating within South African waters.
Authorities subsequently charged the captains and imposed an administrative penalty of 400,000 rand (about $24,118). The vessel owner paid the fine, after which the ships were allowed to depart. Minister Willie Aucamp said the country would not tolerate the unlawful use of its maritime zones.
According to the government, the vessels had initially requested permission on February 23 to pass through South Africa’s Exclusive Economic Zone under the right of “innocent passage”.
They later applied for Off-Port Limits (OPL) authorisation but failed to provide the required documentation, leading authorities to reject the request.
Investigations showed the vessels had already entered South African territorial waters while the application was still under review. They were first detected within 12 nautical miles of the KwaZulu-Natal coast and later tracked along the Eastern Cape coastline.
Officials also said the ships repeatedly switched their Automatic Identification System (AIS) on and off during the journey, a violation of South African regulations that require foreign vessels to keep the system active while transiting national waters.