Two Chinese fishing boats were seized near the southern island of Jeju on Thursday on suspicions of poaching in South Korean waters, maritime police said.

The Jeju Coast Guard said it seized the two boats in waters some 78 kilometers northwest of the island at around 3:30 p.m. for violating South Korea's exclusive economic zones and fishing illegally.

The sailors are also suspected of falsifying their daily logs, the police said. A crewman of one boat wrote it caught 570 kilograms for the day though it harvested 46,370 kilograms, with another man from the other boat putting 400 kilograms, less than half of what it actually caught.

Police said they nabbed the two captains of the ships for further investigation.

Chinese fishing boats are frequently caught fishing in South Korean waters, sometimes leading to violent clashes with South Korean maritime police.

In October alone, such Chinese ships caused property damages worth 362 million won ($331,957), prompting Seoul to press Beijing to step up its own crackdown against illegal fishing by their boats near the Yellow Sea border with North Korea.

(Yonhap News)