Three Taiwanese fishing vessels found fishing illegally in Solomon Islands waters last month have reportedly been fined a total of nearly four hundred thousand US dollars.
The trawlers, which all belong to the same company, were detained by officials during the Forum Fisheries Agency's multi national surveillance exercise called Operation Kurukuru.
The Solomon Star reports sources in the Fisheries Ministry saying one vessel was fined just under 40 thousand US dollars, and the others got fines of 170 thousand dollars each.
The paper says one of the vessels is still being held by officials in Honiara.
