Correspondence
Email sent to the contact address for Rongcheng Xinfa Aquatic Food Co. Ltd., and to an email address for a company which forms part of its corporate ownership, Shandong Xinfa Holdings Co.
The email said: "My name is Ian Urbina. I am with The Outlaw Ocean Project, a journalism organization based in Washington, D.C., in the United States, and I'm working on a magazine story about labor issues and other crimes at sea on Chinese vessels. We are reaching out to request a comment from Rongcheng Xinfa Aquatic Food Co., Ltd., in response to the statement below concerning the Lu Rong Yu 2682, which we mention in the story.
Court documents from the Intermediate People's Court of Weihai City, and reporting by Esquire China, indicate the following about a mutiny on the Lu Rong Yu 2682 in 2011: The captain, Li Chengquan, was a “big, tall, and bad-tempered man” who, according to a deckhand, gave a black eye to a worker who angered him. Rumors began circulating that the seven-thousand-dollar annual salary that they had been promised was not guaranteed. Instead, they would earn about four cents per pound of squid caught, which would amount to far less. Nine crew members took the captain hostage. In the next five weeks, the ship’s crew devolved into warring factions. Men disappeared at night, a crew member was tied up and tossed overboard, and someone sabotaged a valve on the ship, which started letting water in. The crew eventually managed to restore the ship’s communications system and transmit a distress signal, drawing two Chinese fishing vessels to their aid. Only eleven of the original thirty-three men made it back to shore. The lead mutineer and the ship’s captain were sentenced to death by the Chinese government.
We need an official comment in writing on the above statement on the 2011 mutiny by the end of the business day on Friday, September 22nd."