Police pay $31k in damages to fishermen for spoiling octopus Tuoitrenews Colonel Cao Ngoc Lan (C) and other police officials meet with the representatives of fishermen from HCMC's Can Gio District. Tuoi Tre The Hai Duong Province Police Department has paid VND650 million (US$31,250) in damages to fishermen in Ho Chi Minh City’s Can Gio District in relation to the seizure of an octopus shipment. After several days of negotiations between police and fishermen, the compensation was agreed upon at their meeting on Tuesday afternoon and was paid later the same day, Nguyen Thi Phi, the representative of the fishermen, said. At the meeting Colonel Cao Ngoc Lan admitted that the provincial environmental police had committed “shortcomings and omissions” in the handling of two tons of octopus they seized from the fishermen on May 27. The police had not reported the case to the board of directors of the provincial police department for resolution in a timely manner, Lan said. The case began at 11 pm on May 27, when an environmental police unit seized a truck carrying two tons of octopus because the transporter had no quarantine certificate for the goods. They then escorted the truck to the parking lot of a local company for handling. The next morning, dozens of fishermen from Can Gio flew to Hai Duong to complain to police that they had seized the goods unlawfully. When the police agreed to release the vehicle and the goods later the same day, most of the octopus had already been spoiled. Nguyen Trung Hai, one of the fishermen, said, “For the past three years we have transported octopus to the north and we have never had our goods seized because we didn’t have a quarantine certificate. Under Circular 32/2012 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, seafood is not subject to quarantine if it is not transported out of an area with an epidemic.” “As HCMC is not an epidemic area, it was unreasonable for police to demand that we obtain a quarantine certificate for the octopus,” Hai and others fishermen said. While the seafood was detained, police took no measures to preserve them, leaving them spoiled and rotten. Therefore, the fishermen claimed that police should pay them compensation. When they seized the goods, police did not report the action, and did not preserve them either, said lawyer Pham Minh Tam, from the HCMC Bar Association. Also, the inspection of quarantine certificates is not a responsibility of environmental police, but of the veterinary forces, Tam said. Nonetheless, the police deliberately seized the goods for many hours without preservation, and this caused damage to the goods’ owners, the lawyer said. The police said they only detained them for two hours for examination and released the vehicle at 1:15 am on May 28. However, according to a Tuoi Tre investigation, the parking lot where the truck was being kept was not informed of the release until 10 am. Initially, the fishermen claimed total damages of VND755 million, including the value of goods and their travel expenses related to the case. But after police asked for a reduction, the two sides finally agreed to VND650 million. The representative of the fishermen received the damages at 9 pm yesterday. When asked by Tuoi Tre who would be liable for paying the compensation, Colonel Lan said, “The provincial police will review the case and identify who must be responsible for it.”