VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- No trace has been found of a fishing boat that sent out a distress signal off Russia's Far East, but the SOS may have been a hoax, an official said Monday.
The Cambodian-flagged schooner Partner sent out the signal off the west coast of Sakhalin Friday, the Uglegorsk police chief, Sergei Bushuyev, told ITAR-Tass. The coastline was searched by sea and land, but nothing was found and the hunt was called off.
Andrei Krainiy, head of the Russian Federal Agency for Fishery, told reporters in Moscow the ship was poaching, and "if the vessel did sink, it is impossible to find traces, but there is another version. The ship gave a false distress signal to escape to some port in the Asia-Pacific Region, most likely to Japan, be repainted and renamed, get a new package of documents and set off fishing as a new schooner."
He said the boat, then called The Glen Grant, was detained Aug. 7 for violating Russia's economic zone and was released to the owner on bail Oct 8.
He said neither the shipowners in Belize nor authorities in Cambodia have reported the ship missing, nor have relatives of the crew.
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