Poor Indonesian fishermen fined $19,500 for illegal WA trip

Four Indonesian fishermen have been hit with thousands in fines the court says they will likely never pay. Find out why.

Four poor Indonesian fishermen have been hit with $19,500 in fines after being caught with shark fins and a bag of dried fish off the West Australian coast.

The men — known on the court record only by their first names, Dewa, Irwin, Lexa and Safarin — appeared in Darwin Local Court on Monday to plead guilty to illegally fishing in Australian maritime waters.

Senior Commonwealth prosecutor Naomi Low told the court the men’s 10m-long wooden boat was intercepted by an Australian warship on November 11.

The warship crew boarded the boat and found four handlines and three 30kg bags of salt but no catch.

The crew were let off with a warning and told to leave the Australian maritime territory.

But six days later the same vessel was spotted 154 nautical miles past the maritime border.

A border force plane soon spotted the four men on the beach of Sir Graham Moore Island in the Timor Sea.

An inspection of the wooden boat uncovered four shark fins, 10kg of dried fish and fishing equipment.

A mobile phone seized showed a navigation map with dozens of Australian nature reserves, shoals, reefs and other fishing points marked out.

The men were initially put in hotel detention and later moved to an immigration centre on Sunday.

All four men were charged with using a foreign boat for commercial fishing and using that boat to fish in Australia’s territorial sea.

The men each spoke through an interpreter to enter their guilty pleas before Judge John Neill.

Barrister Luke McLaughlin said the men were from a poor, rural background with most of the crew from Rote Island, Indonesia.

Four Indonesian fishermen have been hit with $19,500 by the Darwin Local Court after being caught with shark fins and a bag of dried fish off the West Australian coast in November 2022.

Mr McLaughlin said the 35-year-olds, Safarin and Irwin, were also the sole providers for their wives and young children.

“They are confused, they don’t speak English, this has been a frightening experience for them,” he said.

“They are men that come from very little.”

Commonwealth prosecutor Naomi Low outside Darwin Local Court. Picture: Glenn Campbell

Mr McLaughlin said his clients were “desperate” when they took the small boat out to the open waters.

However, Ms Low said there was a clear commercial slant to their catch, with the “prized and lucrative” Asian delicacy of shark fins in the haul.

Ms Low said the foreign fishing exposition not only diminished Australian fishing stocks but posed an environmental biosecurity risk.

Ms Low said during Covid the number of “foreign incursions” before the courts had declined but that was not because the border was secure.

She said because of the health risks, the foreign fishers were not brought to Australia for prosecution.

Four Indonesian fishermen have been hit with $19,500 by the Darwin Local Court after being caught with shark fins and a bag of dried fish off the West Australian coast in November 2022.

“It’s not the case these offences have stopped … I’m told they’ve increased,” Ms Low said.

Mr Neill said the poor fishermen were enticed to Australian waters by better prospects.

“But irrespective of the poor legal management in neighbouring countries, they have no right to come into Australia and interfere with our fisheries,” he said.

Mr Neill said he had doubts the crew could pay any fines and said an alternative prison sentence would be served if they could not find the money within 28 days.

Safarin, 35, and Irwin, 35, were each fined $6000 and would face 30 days in prison if they could not pay.

Dewa, 27, had to pay $4500, or face 28 days in prison, while the youngest 19-year-old Lexa was fined $3000 or 19 days in prison.

Mr Neill said the poor men’s financial woes would likely continue back home, due to the “cartel” nature of fishing hires.

He said the men would likely be indebted to the boat’s owner given it had been seized by Australian authorities.