His scheme lasted three months until he was arrested during a banal traffic check. A man from Mayenne was tried on Thursday before the Saint-Malo court for selling clams caught illegally in the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, reports West France. Driving without a seatbelt, the 50-year-old was arrested on December 4, 2021 in Cherrueix (Ille-et-Vilaine) after a two-kilometre chase with the gendarmes.
In the back of his van, the soldiers had discovered 58 kilos of clams. Too much fishing because the legislation limits non-professional shore fishermen to only three kilos of clams per day and per person. Not respecting the quotas, the individual had admitted in police custody to fishing around 180 kilos of shellfish per week.
Fake health labels to fool customers
He also fished them in the Roz-sur-Couesnon sector, an area where shellfish are considered unfit for consumption if they do not pass through a purification basin, specifies the daily. Unconcerned with health rules, the fisherman then sold his goods to Parisian restaurateurs by fooling them with false health labels.
Judged in his absence, the fifties was sentenced to twenty months in prison including the revocation of a previous reprieve of four months. An arrest warrant has been issued against him. He was also fined 10,000 euros and banned from fishing for three years.