The South Western Regional Fisheries Board has uncovered the biggest illegal catch of wild salmon in the Kerry area in recent years.
Officers on a routine check of dealers and restaurants found "well in excess of 500" untagged Atlantic salmon in a commercial premises in Kerry.
The board confirmed yesterday that the salmon, with an estimated street value of up to €70,000 (based on prices fetched for wild fresh salmon) were discovered in giant freezers. They had been blast-frozen and may have been caught earlier this summer.
The assistant CEO of the board, Dr Patrick Buck, refused to name the premises, as there was now a criminal investigation. He said officers carried out routine but intensive checks on more than 200 premises each year in the Cork and Kerry region. They also conducted audits on "fish in and fish out".
The possession of even one untagged salmon was an offence, Dr Buck warned. It was normally dealt with by issuing on-the-spot fines of €70. However, because of the scale of Tuesday's find, criminal proceedings were being brought, probably at a higher court than District Court level.
Some of the salmon weighed more than 20lbs, Dr Buck confirmed.
The board controls the biggest wild salmon commercial fishery in the country, with an annual quota of 18,218 salmon, between the Atlantic drift sector and the closer-to-shore draft sector.
Scale tests would be carried out to determine when the salmon were actually caught, Dr Buck said.
The commercial drift net salmon fishing season ceases at the end of July. Fishermen are issued with a limited number of tags and are expected to inform the board when those tags are used. It is suspected that this week's illegal haul was caught by drift net out at sea.
Last night John Murphy - a member of the campaign to stop the drift netting of salmon at sea and the manager of the Waterville Fisheries Development Co-operative, which aims to promote angling in south Kerry - congratulated the board on its detection of the illegal salmon.
Most anglers believe the discovery was "the tip of the iceberg", Mr Murphy said. Major illegal commercial salmon fishing had been going on for years, he said.
His organisation, Stop Salmon Drift Netting Now, was calling for a ban on legal drift netting. "These salmon were illegally caught, outside the quota. There aren't enough resources to police the situation properly," he said.