Phone app yields evidence of illegal crabbing charters

Published 1:30 am Sunday, January 6, 2019

EVERETT — A 55-year-old man is being investigated for illegaly taking people fishing and crabbing out of Dagmars Marina in Everett.

Several witnesses said they saw him daily take up to a dozen people out on a boat, according to search warrants filed in Snohomish County Superior Court.

The man had been warned at least twice in 2017, once by the U.S. Coast Guard and again by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. Each agency told him he needed a charter license to take more than six people on a boat at a time in exchange for payment.

He reportedly said he wasn’t chartering and that he took money only for gas — between $30 and $100 from each customer.

In September 2017, a Fish and Wildlife officer went to the marina and waited for the man to return with a boat filled with customers.

The officer interviewed the customers, who said they gave the man money, but weren’t clear about why. They did say they used WeChat, a messaging app, to communicate with the man.

So the officer made a fake account and sent a friend request.

The suspect accepted.

On the app, court papers say, the officer reportedly saw detailed logistics about the alleged charter operation: times, location, price and what recreational licenses customers needed.

Nearly a year had passed when wildlife officers returned to the marina Aug. 25. They were told by someone who moored his boat there that the man was still chartering fishing trips. This time, the suspect allegedly arrived in a boat with 10 passengers. Officers saw him exchange money and crabs with them, according to documents.

These customers were more helpful. They told officers the man charged $120 per person, according to documents. In return, they explained, the man took them on the water, where they caught fish and Dungeness crab.

They said they were in a group chat with the suspect and shared their message history with officers. The man told officers he charged customers, but it was to rent his boat for $1,200 per day.

He shared his chat history involving that day’s customers. Despite witness reports, he said they were the only ones he took out on the boat all season, search warrant papers say. However, the officers reportedly glimpsed two other chats involving trips from the marina.

They took the phone as evidence. An officer wrote that his chat history “is extensive and will provide a full scope of his activities.” He is being investigated for chartering without a license, a gross misdemeanor, and unlawful trafficking in fish, shellfish or wildlife, a felony offense.

The man has not been arrested and no charges have been filed against him as of Friday.

The suspect knew another man who was charged with running a similar illegal chartering operation at the same marina. After that defendant, 47, was approached by Fish and Wildlife officers in 2017, he called the other man to tell him the police were looking into his operation, too.

Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.