00:00We were in contact with two men yesterday who told us that they were part of an operation
00:05to locate several boats along the Kimberley coastline in an area called Quarry Bay.
00:10So that's about 370 kilometres north of where I am on the Kimberley coast now.
00:15Now one of those men, a Dambi Mangati traditional owner, Adrian Lane, said that he was out doing
00:19monitoring in the mangroves when he first spotted a boat on Monday evening.
00:24He then met up with Kimberley tourism operator Peter Tucker and they reported that first
00:29boat to Border Force officials.
00:31Now they say Border Officials didn't arrive until the following morning, so yesterday
00:35morning.
00:36When those maritime officials arrived, the two men brought them to an area where they
00:40said that they believed boats were sort of tucking into the mangroves.
00:43There were these cave-like sort of holes in the mangroves.
00:47When they arrived there yesterday, that was when they spotted those four boats.
00:52Now the Australian Border Force have confirmed that four boats were intercepted in that area
00:56yesterday.
00:58They said that ABF's Operation Leedstrom was equipped to be able to handle the situation.
01:03Now of course the two men, Mr Tucker and Mr Lane, were certainly surprised, they said,
01:08to have found those extra four boats the following morning.
01:12But they also shared their concerns over the fact that Border Officials arrived in what
01:16they said was more than 12 hours once they reported the boats.
01:21We're pretty elated because we've been seeing them for a while now and Border Force have
01:27come up here once or twice and have, you know, had no luck.
01:31But the Australian Navy happened to be in the area.
01:34They responded to a call and, you know, they were without, of course, without assistance.
01:42They reacted swiftly.
01:43When we went in there, we found the boat tied up right inside the middle of the mangrove
01:47system and the crew were all asleep.
01:52So we assume they've probably been working at night and, yeah, resting during the day.
02:00But we also heard from WA Farmer's President John Hassell who said that he was concerned
02:05about the impacts that these boat arrivals are having on, you know, the agricultural
02:10industry and the biosecurity risks that they pose.
02:13He said that he also believes that these men were potentially looking for sea cucumbers
02:17in the area.
02:18Now, Border Force has said that it is certainly an unfolding situation with these particular
02:24boat arrivals from yesterday.
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