Correspondence
Email sent to the contact address for Shandong Xinfa Holdings.
The email said that the company had received persons from the Xinjiang region under the Chinese government's labor transfer program and that the company's international customers include businesses in the US, where the importation of goods produced from state-imposed forced labor is prohibited. The email asked for comment.
Email sent to the company about its subsidiary, Rongcheng Xinfa Aquatic Food Co. Ltd., requesting comment on the following statements — Court documents from the Intermediate People's Court of Weihai City, and reporting by Esquire China, indicate the following about a mutiny on the Lu Rong Yu 2682 in 2011:
The captain, Li Chengquan, was a “big, tall, and bad-tempered man” who, according to a deckhand, gave a black eye to a worker who angered him. Rumors began circulating that the seven-thousand-dollar annual salary that they had been promised was not guaranteed. Instead, they would earn about four cents per pound of squid caught, which would amount to far less. Nine crew members took the captain hostage. In the next five weeks, the ship’s crew devolved into warring factions. Men disappeared at night, a crew member was tied up and tossed overboard, and someone sabotaged a valve on the ship, which started letting water in. The crew eventually managed to restore the ship’s communications system and transmit a distress signal, drawing two Chinese fishing vessels to their aid. Only eleven of the original thirty-three men made it back to shore. The lead mutineer and the ship’s captain were sentenced to death by the Chinese government.