On the bridge, Adam Meyerson watches the stern of the Thunder as it moves closer and closer. He has set their course to cut off the ship, which is now sailing south-eastward – away from the net floats.
“Nine minutes away. We’re reeling them right in. It is a nice feeling to be on the faster ship,” he chuckles.
“Let’s get the flags up. Uncover the boats!” Hammarstedt says, who has just returned to the bridge.
Soon all the deck hands are wearing survival suits. They pull the tarps off the two dinghies that are installed on the foredeck; a number of the crew hang over the rail to catch a glimpse of the ship that is trying to escape between the icebergs. The Dutch flag is waving above the Bob Barker along with Sea Shepherd’s own flag – bearing the skull of a pirate, but the standard crossbones have been replaced by a shepherd’s crook and a trident.
“We definitely interrupted them when they were fishing. They saw us, and immediately they started running,” Hammarstedt says.
“They know they are up to no good. Criminals run,” Meyerson replies.
Soon they can see the name of the vessel; it is attached to the sternpost on a wooden board that can be removed with a simple hand movement. The Thunder, Lagos.
“That’s too much … They actually have their name on them? It is like finding John Dillinger with a name plate on him,” Meyerson laughs.
Hammarstedt lifts the manual control for the VHF-radio and announces:
“Thunder, Thunder, Thunder. This is the Bob Barker. PC9519. Calling you on Channel 16.”
“This is Thunder on Channel 16.”
“Good afternoon, Thunder. This is the Bob Barker. You are fishing illegally in a CCAMLR region without a permit to fish.”
“Sorry, sorry. No English. Just Spanish.”
“That’s very lucky because hablo español también,” Hammarstedt says and asks the captain of the Thunder to wait while he summons the Spanish-speaking photographer Alejandra Gimeno to the bridge.
“You are fishing illegally. Do you have a fishing permit?”
“We have a permit, we have a permit. The ship has a Nigerian flag, and we are sailing in international waters. Over,” the Thunder replies.
“You are fishing in CCAMLR region 58.4.2, and we have an Interpol wanted notice for you.”
“We are en route and not fishing. By the way, what kind of ship is that? I see that you have a pirate flag. What’s that?” the shipmaster of the Thunder asks.
“Tell him that we are international conservation police and that they’re under arrest,” Hammarstedt says to Gimeno.
“No, no, no. Negativo. You have no authority to arrest this ship. We will keep sailing. Over,” is the reply from the Thunder.
“We have the authority. We have reported your position to Interpol and the Australian police.”
“OK, OK, you may report our position, but you cannot board this ship. Neither can you arrest it. We are sailing in international waters and we will continue.”
“We are going to follow you, and you are under arrest. Change your course to Fremantle, Australia. If we see you fishing, we will physically stop you,” Hammarstedt threatens.
He can feel the adrenaline racing through his body, and trots down onto deck to take the photograph he has been dreaming about, by the railing with the Interpol wanted notice in his hand and the Thunder in the background.
Once back on the bridge, he gives the order to maintain a distance of a half nautical mile from the Thunder. He does not want to come too close, but simultaneously be close enough to be able to respond quickly should the ship change its course.
“The hard part is over now,” Adam Meyerson says.
Before he goes down into the great cabin, Hammarstedt opens the ship’s log, leans over it and writes:
“Hot pursuit begins.”1
6
OPERATION SPILLWAY
LYON, FRANCE, DECEMBER 2014
From the office on the bank of the Rhône River, Alistair McDonnell can see the morning mist suspended like gossamer above the flowing water. For almost all of December, a heavy blanket of clouds has hung over Lyon, and the city is now in the process of moving into a silent, chilly Christmas slumber. McDonnell, the leader of Project Scale, Interpol’s new division against fisheries crime, is just a few days away from a much longed for Christmas holiday at home in Hastings.1
At Interpol’s headquarters, the last year can be summed up as a success. The police organization played a part in breaking up a ring that was smuggling uranium from Moldova, and they rounded up the backers of a syndicate smuggling ivory from Tanzania. In Central America, close to 30 tons of narcotics have been confiscated.
For Operation Spillway there is not much to celebrate for the time being. The secret operation’s foremost target is the pirate ships the Thunder and the Viking. For eight months, Alistair McDonnell has been pondering over how he can stop them.
Then, around lunch time on 17 December, Interpol’s Command and Coordination Centre receives a call from the Southern Ocean.2 Over the poor satellite connection they are able to pick up more or less that the caller introduces himself as Peter Hammarstedt. He explains that he is the shipmaster on the Bob Barker and that he has just found the vessel wanted by Interpol, the Thunder.
When the news reaches McDonnell’s office, he punches his fist into the air. This is the opportunity the British investigator has been waiting for. He quickly transforms portions of the office landscape into a “Situation Room” and marks the Thunder’s position on the electronic maps. He subsequently cancels the Christmas holiday. Operation Spillway is the result of persistent, long-term lobbying activity on the part of bureaucrats and environmentalists. Fisheries crime had long been brushed aside as a joke and held outside police priority areas, even though it had the characteristics of organized crime. Ship documents and fishing protocols were forged; inspectors and port authorities bribed. The ship crews subsisted on slave contracts and the profits were laundered into impenetrable corporate structures. It was a swindle that generated more than USD 20 billion a year.
In 2012, Norway and
