Correspondence
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed the contact address for Bright Food Group.
The email said: "We’re contacting you in light of our research on the practice of ‘flagging in’, whereby fishing vessels owned by companies in one country are flagged to another country in order to access that second country’s waters.
Records indicate that Bright Food Group is the beneficial owner of three fishing vessels flagged to Morocco and over a dozen which are flagged to Argentina. Two of the vessels (Hu Shun Yu 06 and Hu Shun Yu 07) disembarked dead crew members at the Uruguayan port of Montevideo in 2022, and at least one (Hu Shun Yu 07) has a history of disabling its Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) transponder.
In light of the above, we have the following questions for Bright Food Group:
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While we understand that you might not be aware of the above issues, does Bright Food Group have any comment in response to the information contained in this email?
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We are not indicating explicitly or implicitly that flagging-in is illegal, we are just taking a look at the issue of flagging-in globally. Can you please verify that Bright Food Group is the beneficial owner of fishing vessels flagged to Morocco and to Argentina?
Please let us know your responses to the above questions by close of business on July 10, 2024, noting that all interactions remain on record."