Whangarei brothers fined for illegal kina harvesting

The daily limit is 50 kina per person.

Two Northland brothers have copped fines totalling $8000 after they admitted harvesting more than 14 sacks of kina and selling them on the black market in Auckland.

Reo Rangipohewa Uerata, 37, and Douglas Phillip Uerata, 27, earlier admitted a charge of obtaining kina for a benefit and appeared for sentencing in the Whangarei District Court last week.

A woman they sold the seafood to in Auckland, Zelma Dawn Davis, was fined $3000 when she appeared in court on a similar charge on May 11.

The charge was laid under the Fisheries Act 1996 and carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail and or $250,000 fine. The daily limit for kina is 50 per person.

Judge John McDonald said the trio were identified during Operation Gull the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) ran from February to December 2015 into the black market dealing of kina and paua in Auckland.

MPI obtained their cellphone numbers, call data and text messages which indicated the brothers were taking large quantities of kina from Northland, processing and placing them into baskets for sale on the black market in Auckland.

Both made two trips to the City of Sails between February 1 and March 31, 2015 and sold the kina to Davis.

Between February 1 and 7, they went diving and harvested an excess of 14 sacks of kina.
Davis onsold the kina at $12 per basket and earned an estimated $636.

MPI also discovered Davis deposited $648 into Reo Uerata's bank account on February 26, 2015.

Reo Uerata said the offending had been playing heavily on his conscience and that he wanted to make some money as he was going through hard times.

The other two declined to comment.

Judge McDonald said since the introduction of the quota management system that limited the quantity of fish to be taken, the country has had a serious problem with unlawful fishing to service a large black market trade, particularly in Auckland.

He said although kina were in a healthy state, any illegal commercial harvesting had a direct impact on MPI's ability to accurately assess stock levels.

He fined the brothers $4000 each.