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. 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.

Records indicate that Shandong Zhonglu Oceanic Fisheries Co. Ltd. is the beneficial owner of several tuna fishing vessels flagged to Ghana and operated by companies registered in Ghana. Trade data shows that Starboard Seafood (Ontario) Inc.…