‘Mad fishing’: the super-size fleet of squid catchers plundering the high seas

Every year a Chinese-dominated flotilla big enough to be seen from space pillages the rich marine life on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned part of the South Atlantic off Argentina

In a monitoring room in Buenos Aires, a dozen members of the Argentinian coast guard watch giant industrial-fishing ships moving in real time across a set of screens. Every year, for five or six months, the foreign fleet comes from across the Indian Ocean, from Asian countries, and from the North Atlantic," says Cdr Mauricio Lopez, of the monitoring department. It's creating a serious environmental problem."

Just beyond Argentina's maritime frontier, hundreds of foreign vessels - known as the distant-water fishing fleet - are descending on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned strip of the high seas in the South Atlantic, to plunder its rich marine life. The fleet regularly becomes so big it can be seen from space, looking like a city floating on the sea.