.png;w=960)
A prolific B.C. poacher who spent years hiding behind numbered companies, using aliases and racking up a long list of violations under federal fisheries laws has been fined over $1.1 million and sentenced to six years in prison.
The sentence was handed to Scott Stanley Matthew Steer and his numbered company 1215419 B.C. Ltd.—which he claimed was controlled and owned by his wife, but later found to be his “alter ego and a sham.”
It comes after he was found guilty Jan. 8 of orchestrating a highly lucrative illegal sea cucumber harvesting operation.
The trial judge had found Steer and his wife, Melissa Steer, guilty of selling over $1 million worth of sea cucumbers to Wen Lian Aquaculture between September and December 2019. Over four expeditions, the man was found responsible for hauling up almost 100,000 pounds of sea cucumbers in areas that had been closed to any harvesting for multiple years.
A Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) biologist who provided an impact statement to the court said the over-harvesting caused environmental harm and threatened future sea cucumber populations and the fishers who relied on them.
The harvests were carried out without a licence and with falsified papers. The trial judge found the numbered company had been set up to evade past court orders and insulate his illegal fishing activities.
Steer was found guilty of illegal fishing, falsifying official records, and possessing and operating vessels despite court orders prohibiting him from doing so due to past infractions.
Melissa Steer was also found to be fully involved in the “deceptive and evasive plan,” leading the trial judge to rule it was appropriate to pierce the corporate veil of the numbered company.
In his latest sentencing ruling, B.C. Supreme Court Justice David Crerar described “enormous” costs to carry out the multi-year investigation and prosecution. The trial itself spanned six weeks, included 30 witnesses from across Metro Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Alberta, Europe and China.
Multiple search warrants were executed in connection with the case, including on two vessels and a residence. The investigation required divers and arrests in North Vancouver, as well as seizures in Nanaimo, Campbell River and Port McNeill. DFO also obtained production orders for records from Rogers Communications Inc., BMO (TSX:BMO), CIBC (TSX:CM) and Telus Corp. (TSX:T).
Crerar wrote that Steer’s actions showed contempt for Parliament, court orders, and fishers who follow the rules.
“Mr. Steer considers himself unbound by laws. His deliberate deception and illegal fishing show contempt for the fragile and finite marine resources and ecosystems,” wrote the sentencing judge.
“The only way to stop Mr. Steer from ravaging the ocean and flouting the law and court orders is to move him far from the sea for a long period of time. A significant period of incarceration is not only proportionate and just, but necessary.”
Multi-year history of poaching
In coming to his sentencing ruling, Crerar considered a number of factors, including Steers’s 34 previous convictions on 13 prior cases dating back to 2008 (as well as a record of administrative warnings and tickets that went back even further).
Earlier convictions against Steer included fishing for shellfish during a closed period; selling halibut and lingcod without a licence; illegally catching and selling shellfish labelled as “Aboriginal food”; as well as landing fish under the cover of darkness to avoid paying out owners and crew while catching more than the ship’s fishing quota.
In the latter case, the judge wrote it was clear that Steer defrauded the vessel owners and crew out of more than $50,000.
“It is apparent that he is a man without a conscience,” wrote Judge Ted Gouge in 2013.
That same year, Steer was found to have illegally caught 450 kilograms of crab at night in the waters surrounding Vancouver—an area permanently closed to the harvest. Authorities later tracked his movements to Victoria, where he sold the catch under the false story that it had been caught in Tofino.
In that case, the Steers’ lawyer claimed the crab was caught by an associate under a commercial licence held by Indigenous groups. The associate’s Indigenous status was also used in a failed attempt to shield Steer from the latest convictions.
Steer breached multiple court orders over the coming years, and in March 2020, he once again sought the cover of darkness to catch about 250 crabs in the waters surrounding Vancouver.
“This is déjà vu all over again,” wrote Crerar.
Despite a court-ordered lifetime ban on fishing, in September 2020, Steer incorporated another company under the name Giant Red Cucumber Producers Ltd., using an alias for the director and listing his home address on Gabriola Island.
He then used another incorporated company—Shore to Door Seafood Produce Inc.—to sign an agreement with Richmond-based Shin Grand Trading Ltd. that included a $40,000 advance to provide crab, prawns and other seafood.
Over five months in 2021, Shore to Door billed Shin Grand almost $300,000. The invoices directed bank transfers to the couple’s numbered company.
The next year, DFO observed a flat-bed truck leased by Steer at Campbell River’s Fisherman’s Wharf. The driver said he was headed to Gold River to pick up “cukes” off a ship. Authorities would later learn Steer had hired the vessel to harvest sea cucumbers using illegally acquired licences.
Then in 2023, Steer hired an old associate to fish for sea cucumbers, and in a separate case, brokered the sale of nearly US$100,000 in Alaskan crab through a Seattle-based company into Canada. Steer stopped paying the Alaskan supplier after handing over only 42 per cent of what he owed. At the same time, he allegedly invoiced the Seattle company and received payment for the full cost of the shipments, according to court documents.
Man continued to breach laws during latest trial
During the latest hearings, Steer claimed to once again be complying with orders prohibiting him from fishing. He claimed to be importing dishwashing pods from China while running a welding business. His goal, he said, was to one day get licensed to operate a private airplane, tractor-trailer or tugboat.
But Crown prosecutors presented evidence at trial that claimed to show Steer continued to deceive authorities and violate the Fisheries Act by selling sea cucumbers.
During the trial, Steer was found to have sent WeChat voicemail messages to a sea cucumber buyer. The messages show Steer describing the court hearing as “pointless” and a “waste of time,” according to court documents.
Meanwhile, Steer arranged to send about 2,000 kilograms of sea cucumber to the buyer. What Steer didn’t know is that the buyer would appear as a witness when his trial started again in December 2024.
During the course of the trial, Steer’s defence did not contest the Crown’s evidence and withdrew claims he had “turned over a new leaf.”
Prosecutors seek $1.5M penalty, 7 years in jail
In the latest sentencing ruling, Crown prosecutors sought a seven-year jail sentence for Steer and a lifetime prohibition on participating in the fishing industry. Prosecutors also sought a $500,000 fine to the numbered company and a similar lifetime industry ban for his wife.
Both offenders should be held jointly liable for the more than $1 million in unlawful proceeds made in the illegal sale of sea cucumbers, and the couple’s vessels, vehicles and fishing gear should all be forfeited, the government lawyers argued.
Steer’s defence suggested 18-24 months of incarceration for Steer. They argued a $500,000 corporate penalty would be enough to denounce and deter further poaching.
The couple’s lawyers argued they would likely lose their house if forced to pay the proposed $1.5 million penalty, if Steer had to serve a lengthy jail sentence, and the couple was prohibited from fishing.
In sentencing Steer, Crerar described the man as the “directing mind” of a complex organization involving a number of co-conspirators, unwitting employees and subcontractors. To carry out his plans, Steer recruited a number of lower-level employees as divers and crew to work on unlicensed and illegally acquired vessels.
Steer was also found to target and recruit Mexican workers, exposing them to physical and legal danger.
Crerar wrote that there were “few and thin” mitigating factors in this case.
“There is no assertion of remorse or rehabilitation. There is no proposal to disgorge or repay illicit profits. There are no letters of support or of good character,” wrote the judge.
In one instance, Crerar pointed to text messages reviewed at trial between Steer and an associate, where Steer mocked another fisher’s agreement to plead guilty.
As the judge put it: “lesser punishments are literally a joke to Mr. Steer.”
Steer’s actions over the past 17 years indicate he would “almost certainly return to fishing” once released from prison, and only incarceration will prevent him from “inflicting further harm on the scarce public resource of the fisheries,” the judge wrote.
Crerar sentenced Steer to six years in prison and fined him just over $1.1 million, to be paid out over 20 years. The sentence works out to combined payments of $4,607 a month.
Crerar ordered the forfeiture of a number of vehicles, including a Lincoln Navigator, boat trailer, seized flat-bed truck, two vessels, as well as multiple cellphones and navigational devices.
The judge also handed Steer stronger restrictions on his lifetime fishing ban that allow him to possess not more than two kilograms of fish and for personal consumption only. The lifetime prohibitions also apply to his numbered company, as well as to his wife for the next decade.
