VND 100 million fines for 4 fishing vessels losing VMS connection

On May 27, the Binh Dinh Provincial Border Guard Command announced that it had issued administrative fines to four fishing vessels for violating regulations in fishery activities.

Previously, during the inspection and supervision of fishing vessels to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, the Quy Nhon Port Border Guard Station discovered that four fishing vessels from My Thang commune (Phu My district, Binh Dinh) were operating in the southern sea region without maintaining the operation of the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS).

The verification results showed that during their fishing operations, the VMS devices on these four vessels had lost connection with the satellite monitoring system for more than 10 days. However, the captains did not bring the vessels back to the port to rectify the issue and continued fishing until the end of their trip.

Based on the violation records, the Binh Dinh Provincial Border Guard Command decided to impose administrative fines of 25 million VND each on the captains and their vessels for failing to maintain the VMS operation while at sea for vessels with a maximum length of 15 to under 24 meters. Additionally, the captains' certificates were revoked for a period of 4 to 5 months.