In early October, during a patrol, officers from the Ismail district water police, together with the Odessa Fish Protection Patrol, discovered a 63-year-old man engaged in illegal fishing on the shores of Katlabug Lake, near the village of Utkonosivka. He was unloading biological resources from a boat using prohibited nets.

The police reported this.

Investigators who arrived at the scene confiscated a boat, 150-meter-long gill nets, and 69 fish, including crucian carp, common carp, grass carp, bream, and pikeperch from the offender. During the pre-trial investigation, the illegal catch was transferred to a specialized enterprise for safekeeping.

According to an engineer-ecological examination, the damage caused to the state amounted to nearly 209 thousand hryvnias.

The fisherman did not deny his guilt and explained that he was aware of the ban on fishing biological resources with gill nets, but he still used them for personal purposes.

During the pre-trial investigation, which was supervised by the Ismail District Prosecutor's Office, police established all the circumstances of the offense, collected sufficient evidence, and presented charges to the suspect for illegal fishing that caused significant harm. The indictment was sent to court under part 1 of Article 249 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The maximum penalty provided by this article is three years of restriction of freedom.