Photo/Illutration A bluefin tuna brought into the port of Oma, Aomori Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Some fishy business involving bluefin tuna caught off Oma, Aomori Prefecture--the kind that famously reels in massive sums at the year’s first fish auction--is casting a pall over the fishing industry.

Police recently arrested two presidents of seafood processing companies on suspicion of not properly reporting the much-coveted fish caught off Oma.

Now, some experts are warning this scandalous case might just be the tip of the iceberg and that industry rules and oversight are in dire need of being strengthened.

While fishermen must report their bluefin tuna catches, there is no way for officials to check on the accuracy of the reports about the fish being sold in each stage of the process, from hauling it into port to the meat showing up on a diner’s plate in a sushi restaurant. That makes the reporting system ripe for abuse.

“Even if someone is caught, the penalty is too light,” said Toshio Katsukawa, an associate professor of fishery science at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. “I believe such improprieties are happening in many areas--not just Oma.”

Since international catch quotas exist to protect the dwindling numbers of bluefin in the oceans, the Fisheries Agency sets the catch limit for each prefecture, and then the fisheries cooperatives decide how much bluefin tuna can be brought into each port.

The local fishing ports then set a catch quota for each fisherman registered there.

But some fishermen are dissatisfied with the quotas set for them, which are based on past catches.

In Oma, some fishermen are limited to bringing in only several hundred kilograms, while others have a limit of several tons.

The smaller number of bluefin tuna swimming off the coast of Aomori Prefecture means fishermen must travel greater distances to find the prized fish. But that means more money must be spent on fuel, so those fishermen become desperate to catch and sell as much tuna as they can to offset the higher costs.

The two seafood processing companies whose presidents were arrested sold the unreported bluefin tuna at the Shizuoka city central wholesale market.

Sometime around September 2021, Fisheries Agency officials contacted the Shizuoka city government, which manages the wholesale market, and said they had reason to believe unreported tuna were being sold at the Shizuoka market.

City officials began their own investigation and found that between July 2019 and August 2021, the two Aomori companies reported some 120 tons of fish as being kinds other than bluefin, when in fact their catches were the prized tuna.

Some of the fish sold under different names went directly to a Shizuoka wholesale company, rather than being offered through the wholesale market auction.

The president of the Shizuoka company claims not to have known the tuna was unreported. The illegally caught tuna was sold to a company operating a conveyor belt sushi restaurant by another wholesale company in Osaka Prefecture.

Yasuhiro Sanada, a visiting associate professor of regional studies at Waseda University, warned the Fisheries Agency must crack down on systemic failures like this one or it could jeopardize Japan’s reputation abroad.

“If the regulations are not followed, it will not just have a negative effect on natural resources, but could also weaken the persuasiveness of the Japanese government’s arguments (about fishing quotas) at future international conferences.”

Sanada said the penalty for not reporting catches should be greatly increased and digital reporting of transactions in the distribution system needs to be strengthened to prevent illegal sales of bluefin.

(This article was written by Junichi Obata, Toru Furusho, Hiroyuki Maegawa and Sho Hatsumi.)

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