On Saturday night shortly before sunset, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer pulled up to David Vazquez Acosta’s boat in Gordon Pass and asked to take a look around.

Vazquez Acosta said sure, and inside the boat the officer said he found a hidden compartment containing several goliath grouper — a protected species in Florida.

Three others were arrested on a separate boat off Marco Island just a few hours later in what spokesman Officer Jorge Pino said was a more than yearlong FWC poaching investigation.

“These individuals knew exactly what they were doing. They built their vessels specifically to hide fish, and we knew that,” Pino said. “The level of disregard for Florida’s natural resources and the fact that these individuals just chose to violate the law, blatantly, is astonishing to even the most senior investigator that we had on the case.”

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