3 AMSA’s search and rescue incidents 2013–2014: www.amsa.gov.au/search-and-rescue/amsas-role-in-search-and-rescue/search-and-rescue-stories/2013-14/index.asp (accessed 28.09.2016).
8 VESTURVON
1 The story about the Vesturvon is taken from a number of newspaper articles that appeared in the Norwegian newspaper Sunnmørsposten in 1969, the website Vagaskip.dk and the authors’ interview with one of the ship’s first shipmasters: Jóhan Páll Joensen from the Faroe Islands.
2 Alec Gill (2003): Hull’s Fishing Heritage. Wharncliffe Publishing.
9 THE PIRATE CAPITAL
1 This information was found in the archives of the Coalition of Legal Toothfish Operators, Inc. (COLTO), during a visit to their secretariat in Perth, Australia, June 2016. COLTO is the interest organization for the legal fishing fleet, and the members represent 90 per cent of the legal fishing of toothfish.
2 From 2000 to 2003 according to Interpol, the Thunder was owned by three different companies, each of which had a connection to ship owners in Spain: Vistasur Holding, Southern Shipping Ltd. and Muñiz Castiñeira S.L.
3 On 22 September 2006 the Thunder was blacklisted by CCAMLR. During the years leading up to Sea Shepherd’s finding the Thunder at the Banzare Bank in December 2014, the ship was observed at least 19 times around Antarctica or on its way to or from the Southern Ocean by surveillance planes, patrol vessels and legal fishing vessels. It was also inspected or refused entry by port authorities in Malaysia and Indonesia on five occasions.
4 Glen Salmon interviewed by the authors on Skype, 31 August and 1 September 2016.
5 Salmon’s anonymous voyages along the coast of Malaysia were the start of a collaboration which would culminate in the end of “The Bandit 6”. 11 nations in Southeast Asia and Oceania, including Australia and Malaysia, are part of the regional cooperation RPOA-IUU (The Regional Plan of Action to Promote Responsible Fishing Practices Including Combating Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing), which was established during a large-scale Minster conference in Bali in 2007.
6 In Glen Salmon’s archives there are more than 50 reports from the Australian surveillance planes and patrol boats that have observed suspected toothfish pirates in the Indian Ocean and in the Southern Ocean. The reports have been shared with the authorities in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, where the fishing vessels usually slipped in on quiet days on the weekends. The Australian authorities have also sent more than 60 formal letters to countries where the blacklisted vessels are flagged and where the crews come from. The letters were sent from Australian embassies and consulates to nations such as Nigeria, Spain, Mongolia, Chile, Russia, Tanzania and Honduras. (Source: Glen Salmon.)
10 THE STORM
1 Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806–1873) was an American naval officer, hydrographer, historian, oceanographer, meteorologist, cartographer, author and geologist. In 1855 he wrote Physical Geography of the Sea, the first comprehensive book on oceanography.
2 In the Antarctic convergence zone cold water from the Southern Ocean meets warmer water from the southern regions of the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean. The phenomenon is found throughout the entire Antarctic at approximately 58 degrees latitude. The cold water sinks below the warm water and the mingling of water types produces abundant marine life, particularly the Antarctic krill, which is the most important food for penguins, whales, fish and birds. Due to the enormous amounts of krill in this area, the Antarctic krill is referred to as “the most successful animal on earth”.
11 THE SECRET CHANNEL
1 Alistair McDonnell and Mario interviewed by one of the authors in Lyon, 9 August 2016. Due to the nature of his job as an intelligence agent, Mario does not want his surname made public.
2 At this time, fisheries officers and legal professionals from Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Canada and the USA took part in the telephone conferences.
3 Interpol is the police’s global headquarters for collaboration across national borders. The need for such a central agency arose simultaneously with the emergence of commercial air traffic and private motoring. Suddenly it was simple for criminals to escape across national borders. The precursor to the Interpol of today was established in Vienna in 1923, but the organization was hijacked by Hitler, who appointed Nazi generals as presidents, including Reinhard Heydrich, one of the architects behind the Holocaust. After the war Interpol was relocated to Paris and later to Lyon, where the organization now has its global headquarters. Interpol has 190 member nations. Only the UN has more. Interpol has no authority over the member nations and to ensure the organization’s political neutrality, Interpol is not to become involved with crime of a political, military, religious or racial nature.
4 Specialists on digital investigation from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were involved in Project Scale from the beginning. They participated in Interpol’s first fisheries crime operation, Operation Stingray, and in Operation Spillway – the search for the Thunder and the Viking.
5 Interpol’s work to combat fisheries crime is two-fold. Project Scale, the group of investigators and analysts who are led by Alistair McDonnell, is based in Lyon. Project Scale is supported by an expert group of inspectors, legal professionals and bureaucrats who are not employees of Interpol, but whose daily activities are carried out in ministries and directorates in their respective nations. The expert group is called the Fisheries Crime Working Group and is headed by the Norwegian Gunnar Stølsvik. The nations that played the most active part in the chase for the Thunder were Norway, Australia, New Zealand, USA, South Africa, Canada and eventually Nigeria.
6 Tor Glistrup interviewed by the authors in Bergen, 26 May 2016.
12 THE LONGEST DAY
1 Roald Amundsen (1912): Sydpolen. Den norske sydpolsfærd med Fram 1910–1912. Jacob Dybwads forlag, Kristiania.
2 Approximately 100,000 British and German soldiers took part in the unofficial Christmas cease fire on the Western Front in 1914. Gifts were exchanged and dead soldiers lying in no-man’s land were buried. In several places football matches were also played, which later came to be a kind of symbol of humanity in an inhumane war. A young corporal in the 16th Bavarian reserve infantry regiment strongly disapproved of the
