ScubaGlobe Asia Pacific - Micronesia

August 10 2008 UK Bogus bends nets Divers £250,000 A pair of divers swindled £250,000 (US$500,000) from the National Health Service for treating bogus cases of the bends. David Welsh, 49, and diving instructor Michael Brass, 43, are facing prison sentences after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the NHS and perverting the course of justice. Welsh ran the Fort Bovisand diving centre, which had its own recompression chamber. They paid strangers they met in pubs up to £200 to pose as divers who needed recompression treatment, they only needed only the real names, addresses, dates of birth and national insurance numbers of the supposed victims to work the fraud. Most had never been underwater and some could barely swim. Welsh billed National Health Trusts from all over the UK £6,500 a time for treating the 37 fake victims. The fraud was discovered when police investigated two cases of divers from Liverpool who were supposedly treated for the bends at the recompression chamber. Full story...

August 25 2008 HawaiiArchaeologists have located British whaler sunk by bad weather in 1837 off Kure Atoll Artefacts from the remains of a wreck believed to be of the British whaling vessel Gledstanes lost for 171 years have been found off Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The artefacts include four large anchors, cannons and cannonballs. The Gledstanes is the fourth whaling vessel found in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, evidence of the area's significance as a 19th-century whaling area. The divers who found the shipwreck were taking part in the 2008 Maritime Heritage Expedition, sponsored by NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries. Full story...

Micronesia

Illegal Philippine fishing boats

Greenpeace says its ship Esperanza found evidence of illegal tuna fishing in international waters between Papua New Guinea and the Federated States of Micronesia last week. The vessels were Philippine-registered.

The unauthorised Queen Evelyn 168 was found during a patrol by the Esperanza's helicopter next to a fishing boat in company with a mothership, which are both legally allowed to be in the area.

All three boats are registered in the Philippines, and once they were discovered, they left the area.

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