Earlier, operations duty officer of the Astrakhan Border Command received information from Kazakhstan's border guards that several Azeri vessels were found in illegal fishery in the vicinity of the Kulala bank (north Caspian Sea), which can hardly be controlled by Kazakhstan's Navy due to its specific geographical position.
At the Kazakh counterparts' request, border patrol boats on duty in the north Caspian Sea were dispatched to the specified area. Simultaneously, the information was forwarded to the Caspian Sea Border Command, having assets of longer range available.
Late at night Rasul Gamzatov border patrol boat of the Caspian Naval Brigade arrived in the specified zone and at sunrise detected and stopped for inspection a harvesting vessel carrying no flag or identification markings several miles to the south of the U-shaped island of Kulala.
The inspection revealed that the vessel left the homeport of Baku on July 26. Four out of 10 crewmembers had no IDs on. The captain of the vessel did not produce any documents, primarily those authorizing fishery, and failed to explain the purpose of his stay in the area.
Following preliminary examination, the Russian sea border guards passed the unauthorized vessel over to their Kazakh counterparts, who possessed the information on its illegal activities off the east Caspian Sea shore.
