Correspondence
Email sent to the contact address for DAC Group.
The email said: "We’re contacting you in light of our latest investigation which concerns the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry, specifically North Korean workers in Chinese plants.
We have investigators on the ground in China who have been engaging with labor brokers directly involved with the transfer of North Korean workers to factories in China. Through this and other investigative means, including collecting online footage from the plants and interviews with workers recently returned to North Korea from China, we’ve found large numbers of North Korean workers at a range of seafood processing plants in Liaoning province, on China’s border with North Korea, as recently as 2023. Two of these plants are called Donggang Jinhui and Dalian Haiqing.
The use of overseas North Korean workers was prohibited by the United Nations Security Council in 2017, with Resolution 2397 setting a deadline of December 2019 for the repatriation of all such workers to North Korea. Under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), passed in 2017, the United States prohibits the import of any goods produced by North Korean nationals unless clear and convincing evidence is provided that indicates the materials were not made with forced labor.
According to trade records, DAC Group imported two shipments of seafood from Donggang Jinhui in 2023, and several shipments of seafood from Dalian Haiqing in 2022.
While we understand that you may not be aware of the above issues, we want to ask if DAC Group has any comment to make in response to this email?"
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed two contact addresses for DAC S.p.A., saying: "We previously emailed DAC S.p.A. on February 7, 2024, regarding our investigation into the use of forced labor in China’s seafood processing industry.
We’re contacting you now 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. 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.
Trade data indicates that DAC S.p.A. was the consignee for shipments of seafood from the Argentine company Arbumasa in 2022 and 2023. Records indicate that Arbumasa runs a fleet of at least nine vessels, several of which catch shrimp within Argentinian waters. According to information published on its website, Arbumasa is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chinese company, Dalian Huafeng Aquatic Products.
While we understand that you might not be aware of the above, does DAC S.p.A. have any comment in response to this email? If so, please let us know by close of business on July 19, 2024, noting that all interactions remain on record."