Former Cape Town fishing magnate Arnold Bengis pleaded guilty in the United States on Tuesday to charges relating to a massive seafood poaching and smuggling scheme.
Bengis, 67, former head of the defunct Hout Bay Fishing company, agreed to pay at least $5-million to the US government, the exact amount to be determined when he is sentenced in May.
In a statement on Tuesday night, the US attorney's office in New York said Bengis and co-conspirator Jeffry Noll, 53, pleaded guilty to importing into the US huge quantities of rock lobster and toothfish which had been poached in South Africa.
The lobster and highly endangered toothfish had been harvested in contravention of South African and international law and then shipped into the US in an elaborate poaching and smuggling operation over several years. Bengis and Noll pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the US's Lacey Act, which makes it a crime to import into the US wildlife caught in violation of a foreign law. They also pleaded guilty to three charges of violating the Lacey Act.
Three other South Africans, who were all previously in management positions with Hout Bay Fishing, were also arrested in New York last year: Grant Berman, Shaun Levy and David Bengis, son of Arnold Bengis.
Berman and Levy pleaded guilty to charges last year, but have not been sentenced.
The poaching and smuggling scheme was conducted through Hout Bay Fishing Industries in Cape Town and three of its sister companies in the US: Icebrand Seafoods, Associated Sea Fisheries and Icebrand Seafoods Maine.
The indictment alleges that the Beng
ises, Noll and their co-conspirators engaged in a scheme between at least 1987 and 2001 to poach huge quantities of South African lobster and toothfish and export it illegally.
They under-reported the fish harvest to the South African authorities, bribed fisheries inspectors and submitted false export documents. In May 2001, Marine and Coastal Management seized a container of illegally harvested fish that Bengis was trying to export to the US.
After this Bengis and his co-accused "engaged in a series of elaborate deceptions designed to avoid detection and perpetuate the scheme".
Bengis was arrested in Manhattan in August last year and released on $25-million bail.