After 110-day Pursuit, Pirate Fishing Vessel Sinks With Illegal Haul

"A remarkable adventure came to a dramatic end Monday: The captain of a rogue fishing vessel that had been tailed by activists for more than three months apparently sank his ship off West Africa rather than face arrest with a load of illegally caught fish.

The pirate fishing ship’s crew was rescued by its pursuers, two ships belonging to the Sea Shepherd fleet, the Sam Simon and the Bob Barker, named after the late co-founder of The Simpsons and the former host of The Price Is Right.

Siddharth Chakravarty, the captain of the Sam Simon, said in a telephone interview Monday that the captain of the rogue ship Thunder, a Chilean, had told him that it sank because it had suffered a collision, an unlikely story. 'We had crew on their boat and they noticed that all the doors had been tied open, which is the opposite of what you do if you’re taking on water after a collision,' he said. 'Then the officers had neatly packed bags, so I have no doubt this was a planned, very intentional scuttling designed to remove evidence,' Chakravarty said."

Christopher Pala reports for Slate April 6, 2015.