THAILAND’S largest seafood company said yesterday it had cut ties with a major supplier following an investigation uncovering slave labour in the global fishing industry.

Thai Union Frozen Products (TUFP) did not name the supplier it claimed to have “terminated” links with, in a statement saying slave labour was “utterly unacceptable.”

The scandal was unveiled by reporters who interviewed dozens of current and former slaves working on trawlers based in Benjina, an island village in Indonesia.

Slaves said they had been variously tricked, kidnapped or sold into slavery. They slept in cages and many worked 22-hour days and suffered regular beatings, including with toxic stingray tails.

Many had died, according to runaway Hlaing Min, who said: “There must be a mountain of bones under the sea. The bones could be an island, it’s that many.

“If Americans and Europeans are eating this fish, they should remember us.”

TUFP’s portfolio includes numerous foreign firms, including Britain-based John West Foods and pet-food producer Iams.

Slave-caught fish was traced by Associated Press investigators to factories that ship food to US retailers, and reporters believe that some of the fish ends up in European and Asian markets as well.

TUFP says “consumers can rest assured that our current products are not tainted,” although investigators claimed working out whether a product sold in the West contained any slave-caught fish would be almost impossible.

Indonesian Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti pledged to act swiftly to stamp out “such a thing happening in our waters,” adding: “Illegal fishing is killing people.”

by Our Foreign Desk