Poaching activities lead to depletion of fishing resources and result in heavy impacts on marine biodiversity. Since the target of poaching is the most valuable fish and marine invertebrates species.
For instance, the actual catch of Kamchatka king crab exceeds official figures by 3-4 times. Kamchatka crab population in the Sea of Japan and in the south area of Kurils Islands has lost their commercial value. Due to the depletion of the resources in the main area of crab catching – to the west of Kamchatka – the maximum sustainable yield was reduced from 76 thousand tones in 1999 to 56 thousand tones in 2002.
Poachers try to use all options to get access to catch this valuable species: buy quotas at the auction or receive quota for less expensive crabs such as: spiny king crab or tanner crab, or even fish, but actually they catch Kamchatka king crab.
Under estimates of Federal Border Guard Service the volume of poaching catch in financial terms comes to 2.5-4 billion dollars US per year.
According to other data, the difference between figures of Russia export and Japan import of fish and invertebrates comes to 1.084 billion dollars US in 1999 and 1.111 billion dollars US in 2000.
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