Mid West family fined over $70,000 for illegal trade in lobsters

Three members of a Leeman fishing family have proven the old adage “crime doesn’t pay” during sentencing this week for delving into the black-market lobster trade.

Ronald George Dennis, 67, his wife Lorna Frances Weeks, 67 and their son Ronald Francis Dennis, 29, were fined more than $70,000 between them and ordered to pay 10 times the value of 40kg of rock lobster they illegally sold to undercover DPIRD officers.

For at least a year they ran a black market lobster trade.