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costa calida EDITION
Your English Newspaper
roundtownnews.com
Issue 19
8 - 14 march 2013
Slippery customer for SEPRONA in San Pedro del Pinatar
The restaurant owner was caught with a vanful of undersize octopi purchased illegally. by Murciatoday.com
Andrew at his Murcia home
Couple wait for justice
Andrew Wilford’s dream of a Spanish home ended when in 2008 he found CAM had issued a builder’s mortgage to the developer of the Trampolin Solera complex in Murcia based on an inflated valuation. He is now are waiting for a court judgement that he hopes will bring him justice after investing in the ‘off plan’ nightmare. Read the full story on page 8.
Humans will be humans, and no matter how strict the penalties, there will always be somebody trying to beat the system, so the forces of law and order have to maintain a constant state of alert to keep ahead of the latest ploy. “Follow that van!” has been a successful strategy employed in the past and one which was used again this week to catch a slippery customer sneaking out of the fishing port in San Pedro del Pinatar with a bootful of booty. The Servicio de Protección de la Naturaleza (SEPRONA) of the Guardia Civil de la Región de Murcia, in conjunction with inspectors from the regional fishing authority, have confiscated a total of 113 kilograms of octupi (“Octopus vulgaris”)which were caught leaving the fishing port of San Pedro del Pinatar. Each of the specimens apprehended had an average weight of under 1 kilogram a piece and were thus under the minimum legal weight permitted to be caught for commercial use. In addition, the documentation normally required for the first sale of this species of fish was not available for inspection.
The incident took place when SEPRONA agents, who were conducting an exercise of surveillance and prevention of illegal fishing activities, stopped a van on the outskirts of San Pedro del Pinatar and found that it was transporting several large containers filled with octopi, some of them still alive. After noting the lack of documentation and the small size of the fish concerned, the agents released the living octopi into the waters of the port and took the rest to a storeroom at the police station in San Pedro del Pinatar. The alleged perpetrator turned out to be the owner of a local restaurant, who told agents that he had bought the octopi directly from a fishing vessel instead of from the fish market as required by law and was intending to serve the fish in his establishment. The remainder were subjected to a once over by an inspector from the Ministry of Health, and once declared fit for consumption, distributed to various welfare centres in the Region of Murcia. Both vendor and purchaser will now face sanctions for the various offences committed.
Article: www.murciatoday.com Local news, what’s on and where to go in the Murcia Region.