Illegal Fishing in Argentina and the Falkland Islands: Anatomy of a Deception

This investigation examines the strategies used by Argentine and foreign fishing companies to fish simultaneously in the waters of the Argentine Sea and the Falkland Islands, a practice prohibited by local laws since 1997. Until now, this “double game” has been sustained through various maneuvers: name changes, the transfer of assets when illegal activity comes to light, opaque corporate structures, and license lease agreements that conceal the existence of the operations and their ultimate beneficiaries. Preliminary evidence points to a recurring pattern, with environmental, fiscal, and geopolitical consequences.

The investigation consists of three stages. The first will focus on the characteristics of the Argentine fishing grounds, where opacity, corporate lobbying, and its usual counterpart—political corruption—prevail. So much so that environmental organizations ranked Argentina last in transparency among the nine Latin American countries with fishing records. The second stage will aim to compile—primarily through testimonies and on-the-ground reporting—a detailed analysis of fishing in the Falkland Islands: British and Spanish joint ventures exploit the resources of an industry that has rapidly enriched the islands’ economy and is mired in allegations of overfishing, labor exploitation, and human trafficking.

The final phase, meanwhile, will cross-reference the information from the two previous phases to identify any overlapping companies, subsidiaries, or shareholders that are simultaneously harvesting fishery resources in both exclusive economic zones—a practice prohibited in Argentina as a result of the diplomatic conflict that arose following the Falklands War.