Five men accused of conspiracy to defraud the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (FMA) have changed their pleas to “guilty” in the Supreme Court of Tasmania.

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The men admitted to involvement in a two-year operation in which they under-declared catches of orange roughy fish, a scam that cost the FMA A$2.3m (US$1.2m).


Mervyn Lee, Trident Seafoods director; Cornelius Jansen, Victrawl shore manager; Phillip Turner, Victrawl general manager; Antonio Tedesco, Victrawl employee, and boat captain Daren Coulston used four boats to conduct the scam from 1992.

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