A Taiwanese fishing-boat captain faces up to 10 years in jail after marine police found 42 shark fins aboard his vessel in a port at a southern Thai resort, police said yesterday.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Prasert Srikunnarat, deputy chief of Phuket island marine police, named the man as Tsai Ting-jin, aged 54.
Tsai, who is the captain of a Taiwanese tuna-fishing boat, was arrested Wednesday by police acting on a tip-off at the island's Rassada port, 690km southwest of Bangkok.
He is being detained at Phuket police station and has been charged with bringing fresh shark fins into Thailand without permission from Customs, Prasert said.
The charge carries a maximum 10 years in jail, he said.
The Web site of the Phuket Gazette newspaper reported Tsai as telling police he had sailed his boat alone from Taiwan to Thailand to catch sharks for their fins. He planned to take the fins back to Taiwan for sale, the report said.
Sharks' fin soup is considered a great delicacy by many Chinese and fetches high prices in Chinese restaurants in Thailand and other countries in Asia. Environmentalists have warned that hunting for fins could endanger some shark species.
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