This time, though, officials were on alert. It carried what was most likely the same stock of frozen Antarctic toothfish, but the crew said the haul was Pacific cod for transshipment to Vietnam. Two months later, the same rust-stained ship appeared in the Chinese port of Yantai, on the Yellow Sea.
Namibia denied the ship entry and reported the encounter to international authorities. When port authorities started asking questions, the Andrey Dolgov’s crew said they had merely offloaded the fish from a Korean ship named the Bochang No. Namibia is part of a coalition of nations that have pledged to protect the Antarctic toothfish, which has a high market value and is biologically vulnerable. The ship’s forthright declaration raised suspicions. The total-about 125 tons-would fetch more than $3.6 million on the wholesale market.
A crewman radioed ahead and asked for clearance to unload hundreds of thousands of pounds of frozen Antarctic toothfish pieces in sacks and boxes, and an additional 6,200 pounds of toothfish heads. The seas were calm and the winds were light when the Andrey Dolgov, a cargo ship flying the Cambodian flag, motored in from the South Atlantic Ocean toward Walvis Bay, Namibia, one March day in 2016. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
