http://www.southeasttexaslive.com/site/ ... 2588&rfi=6

08/31/2006
Seafood pirates menace Pleasure Island
By: COLIN MCDONALD , The Enterprise


PORT ARTHUR - For the past month, the Nguyen family has been spending their nights standing guard at their shrimp dock on Pleasure Island.

Four times in the past four months, robbers have snuck onto their property and carted off a total of $20,000 to $25,000 worth of shrimp, said owner Scott Nguyen.

On Wednesday morning, Port Arthur police detained four men who appeared to be fleeing the scene of another attempt at nocturnal shrimp theft. With the men in custody, investigators are hoping to bring to a close

the half dozen open cases they have this summer of such incidents on Pleasure Island.

"It's been a long time since I have seen this," Maj. Raymond Clark, Port Arthur's deputy chief of criminal investigation, said of the raids.

As Nguyen explained, on Wednesday morning around 2:30 his father, Thu Nguyen, was awakened by a noise outside the trailer the family keeps on the property. When he went to the door, he saw a man about 50 feet away wearing a ski mask and holding a machete and another man trying to break into one of the containers of shrimp.

Thu fired two shots into the air.

"They took off across the field," Nguyen said of the two masked men. "Then this red car took off."

As the men ran across the field they returned fire, Nguyen said, but no one was injured.

In the meantime, Nguyen's mother called the Port Arthur police and officers were able to stop a red car on the on the MLK bridge. Inside the car were four men, four masks, a machete and a gun, police reported.

Nguyen said he can sell shrimp on the wholesale market for between $2.30 and $2.40 a pound. Once the shrimp are de-headed, they can be sold for twice that in a supermarket.

"They have been hitting both of us," Nguyen said, pointing to neighbor Titan Seafoods. "One pallet is 2,000 pounds, so even if they sell it at a dollar a pound, that is still money."

Two weeks ago Titan reported to police that 50 bags weighing 85 pounds each had been stolen in a single night. The police estimated the value of the shrimp at $8,500.

Police turned their suspects over to Immigration and Naturalization Service representatives in Beaumont, who determined the men are from Honduras and are in the U.S. illegally. The INS is pursuing federal charges of an alien in possession of a firearm and starting deportation proceedings, Clark said.


cmcdonald@beaumontenterprise.com

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