SYDNEY: Poachers call it white gold: the firm flaky flesh of the Patagonian toothfish so prized by top-dollar diners in Tokyo, Hong Kong and New York.

Stealing the prized fish from the icy waters of the Antarctic is a multi-million dollar industry ranking right up there with drug running and people smuggling.

The boats used are rust buckets, registered in jurisdictions like Togo, Belize and Bolivia where few questions are asked. They operate in territorial waters that belong to Australia, France, South Africa, Britain and New Zealand.

They like to land their illegal catches at Port Louis in Mauritius, the Indian Island territory where little notice is taken of the Commission for the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).

Set up by the 24 countries that signed the Antarctic Treaty, CCAMLR is the New Zealand-based regulatory authority for fishing around the South Pole.

The legal catch of signatory countries was last year set at 10,898 tons, but CCAMLR estimates the total take of Patagonian toothfish to be at least twice that.

International environmental lobby group Greenpeace worries that the toothfish, which can live for 100 years and reach two metres, is in dire straits.

The difficulty CCAMLR countries have in enforcing their writ is not just the ingenuity of the pirates and the enormous cost of bringing them to book. Greenpeace alleges that CCAMLR signatory countries Russia, Uruguay and South Korea turn a blind eye to their own toothfish pirates. Mauritius, which has CCAMLR observer status, willingly provides the poachers a port.

Poachers are tricky to catch. They black out the names of their vessels, change boat names frequently, switch catches and crews on the high seas.

They also try and outrun vessels sent out to catch them. Last year, the Togo-registered “South Tommy” had 100 tons of toothfish aboard when it led Australia’s “Southern Supporter” fisheries patrol vessel on a 4,100 km chase before being stopped.—dpa