Trans-Global's operations, which are located in the mouth of the Rio Minho in Clarendon, have suffered from water contamination and the theft of both equipment and its stock since inception.
The Jamaican operation is owned by an American company, Trans-Global Products Inc, which poured $6 million into the company at start-up to sell shrimp to markets in the United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan and Europe, reports the Gleaner.
Its production target was 10-12 million pounds of shrimp per year.
"They did produce quite a bit, (but) even at that highest stage of production they were not profitable because of the issues," former Trans-Global Aquaculture Manager Noel Thompson told the Gleaner.
"The two major problems they had were praedial larceny and water quality issues, which mainly had to do with the dumping of dunder by the Clarendon distillery into the river. There was theft of the shrimp, equipment and other things like electrical cables," said Thompson.
Liquidator Vitus Evans says Trans-Global Aquaculture has current assets of $49 million but owed related parties $174 million as of July 31, 2013.
"At the time when I took over the liquidation process they had already paid all their creditors and made their staff redundant, since it was a voluntary liquidation. They did all their payments before it came to me," Evans said.
Trans-Global employed 250 people directly between the farming operation and the processing plant, the latter of which ran on two shifts. The final 32 workers were cut a year ago when the company collapsed from the weight of its losses.
