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Harrowing Details of Louisiana Shark / Meth Bust Emerge From Bayou

Shrimping vessel contained too many sharks, meth, police say.
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A Louisiana man was arrested last week for allegedly having too many sharks and crystal meth aboard his shrimping vessel in the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries police told Motherboard. 

During bull shark fishing season, fishing persons may catch and release as many bull sharks as they desire, but are limited to keeping just one shark per vessel. The shark must be at least 54 inches long. A police officer for the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries told Motherboard in a phone call that the person arrested “possessed two undersized bull sharks, and to legally possess them, they have to be over 25 inches. And you can only possess one daily per vessel.”

The officer said that law enforcement noticed the bull sharks in plain view on the back of the deck of the fishing vessel and boarded the vessel. “We gained consent to go into the cabin to inspect and saw a homemade smoking apparatus in plain view, and that’s when we found the crystal meth,” the officer said.

“They were caught using a skimmer net off the back of a shrimping vessel,” he said of the sharks. An arrest report with more details is expected to be available early this week.

Local news first reported the arrests, though they did not identify the type of shark nor the order of events in the case.